Theme
Feelings
Page 1
Theme: Feelings
Introduction (for both language levels)
Being able to put words to emotions and explore different feelings is important
both for understanding oneself and for understanding others.
Language Level: Children in the early or fairly early stages of
language development
Questions
Support children in the conversation by referring to one or more illustrations in
the selected books on the thematic bookshelf. Children who may not yet
express themselves in words can point, use sounds, or express themselves with
their bodies.
● What makes you happy?
● How does it feel inside when you’re happy?
● What do you like to do when you’re happy?
● How can you tell if someone is happy?
● Have you ever been sad?
● How did it feel?
● What do you usually do when you’re sad?
● What would you like others to do when you’re sad?
● How can you tell if someone is sad?
● How does it feel inside when you’re scared?
● Are you afraid of anything? Tell us.
● What would you like others to do if you become scared?
● How can you tell if someone is scared?
© ILT Education 2025
Page 2
● Have you ever been angry?
● Why did you get angry?
● How does it feel inside when you’re angry?
● How can you tell if someone is angry?
Vocabulary
● Happy – feeling joy
● Angry – feeling very upset or annoyed
● Sad – feeling downhearted
● Scared – feeling fear
● Laugh – sound that comes from the body when one is, for example,
happy or amused
● Cry – to shed tears
● Comfort – to soothe someone who is, for example, sad
● Scream – to yell or shout
● Smile – to turn the corners of the mouth upwards towards the eyes
● Tremble – to shake
● Face – part of the head with the eyes, nose, and mouth
● Tear – drop that comes from the eye
● Body – all parts, both internal and external, of a person or animal
© ILT Education 2025
Page 3
Activities
Play
● Sit in front of a large mirror. Encourage the children to express a specific
emotion and look at themselves in the mirror. Talk about what their facial
expressions look like for each emotion.
● Create memory cards with a few selected emotions, such as happy, sad,
angry, and scared. There are free images available online to print. Play
together, naming and talking about the different emotions during the
game.
● Play a happy game. Talk with the children about what you did in the
game and how it felt inside.
● Play with dolls, animals, or a character from a children’s book. Pretend,
for example, that they are sad, and discuss what you could do together
to make them feel better. Do so in the game and pay attention to what
the children express, both verbally and non-verbally. Encourage and
support the children in developing the play.
Music and Movement
● Choose music that feels happy and listen to it together. Move to the
music. Then discuss what feeling the music conveyed, how it felt inside,
and the movements you made.
● Act out different emotions from a selected book on the thematic
bookshelf. The children should have heard the book and discussed it
more than once. If acting is new to the children, let them imitate an adult.
Before the acting, review the different emotions in the book and discuss
what the characters do when they feel those emotions.
● Sing a happy song. Add movements to the song and discuss what you
did and how it felt inside.
● Act out different verbs and emotions. For example, what might you do
when you’re happy? Perhaps bounce, jump, dance, laugh, or skip. What
might you do when you’re scared? Perhaps tremble, close your eyes,
shake, and so on.
© ILT Education 2025
Page 4
Art, Images, and Form
● Emotions can have different colours. Which colours do the children
associate with joy, sadness, fear, and anger? Then let the children paint
one of the emotions. Afterwards, let the children describe their artwork
by naming the emotion and colour. Support or challenge the children in
their descriptions.
● Create emotion cards or print ready-made ones from the internet. Place
the cards face down and let the children pick one at a time. Discuss the
image on the card. What emotion might it be? How can we tell? How
does that emotion feel in the body?
● Take a picture walk, flipping through a book from the thematic bookshelf
and discussing the pictures without reading the text. What emotions can
we see in the images? How do the people or characters look? What are
they doing? Children who cannot yet express themselves verbally can
participate by pointing to the pictures and using body language and
facial expressions. When children cannot respond, act as a thinking
partner and show them how the question could be answered.
© ILT Education 2025
Page 5
Language Level: Children who have advanced or are progressing well
in their language development
Questions
Support the children in the conversation by referring to one or more
illustrations in the selected books on the thematic bookshelf.
● Have you heard the word ‘emotions’ before? What emotions do you
know?
● How can you tell if someone else is, for example, angry, happy, or sad?
● What makes you happy?
● What can we do to make others feel happy?
● How can you tell if someone is sad?
● What can we do to comfort someone who is sad?
● Do you usually say sorry? When can you say sorry? Is saying sorry
enough, or is there anything else we need to think about?
● How does worry feel in the body?
● When you feel worried, it can help to do something you enjoy. What do
you like to do?
● How can we help someone who feels worried?
● Have you ever been angry? Why did you become angry?
● How did it feel inside your body when you were angry?
● What did you do to let go of the anger?
● How does someone who is jealous feel?
● Why do you think people get jealous?
● Have you ever felt jealous? Tell us about it.
© ILT Education 2025
Page 6
Vocabulary
● Emotion – a strong feeling
● Happiness – feeling joyful
● Anger – feeling very upset or annoyed
● Sad – feeling downhearted
● Grumpy – feeling irritated and sulky
● Fear – feeling scared
● Worried – feeling uneasy or troubled
● Calm – having control over one’s emotions
● Disappointed – feeling dissatisfied, sad
● Jealous – feeling resentful
● Apologise - to say sorry
● Miss – to feel sad over something you no longer have or someone who is
no longer there
● Unfair – treating people differently
● Content – feeling pleased and satisfied
● Mood – state of mind
© ILT Education 2025
Page 7
Activities
Play
● Create memory cards with different emotions. Choose emotions and the
number of cards based on the children’s language ability and experience
with memory games. There are free images online to print. Play together,
naming and discussing the different emotions during the game.
● Sit in front of a large mirror. Encourage the children to express a specific
emotion while looking in the mirror, both at themselves and at another
child, and compare facial expressions. What similarities do they see? Do
they notice any differences?
● Talk with the children about any games that make them feel happy. Play
the game, then discuss how it felt in their bodies and why they think it
felt that way.
Music and Movement
● What emotions can music make us feel? Listen to music with different
tempos as well as major and minor keys. Move to the music as well. Talk
with the children about what emotions the music stirred, why it made
them feel that way, and what movements matched the music.
● Let the children express different emotions with instruments, one
emotion at a time. How can we play when we’re happy, sad, or angry? To
start, you could listen to music that conveys a specific emotion and
discuss it.
● Act out different emotions from a selected book on the thematic
bookshelf. The children should have heard the book and discussed it
more than once. Before acting, review the different emotions in the book
and discuss what the characters do when they feel that way.
● Take turns acting out an emotion and let the others guess which emotion
it is.
© ILT Education 2025
Page 8
Art, Images, and Form
● Create collages that represent a specific emotion by cutting out images
and colours from magazines and pasting them on a large sheet of paper.
Let the children describe their collage and explain why they chose those
colours and images.
● Take a picture walk by flipping through one of the books on the thematic
bookshelf and discussing the images without reading the text. What
emotions are shown in the pictures? How do the emotions look? Do we
recognise ourselves in these expressions or not? Why?
● Create emotion cards or print ready-made ones from the internet. Place
the cards face down and let the children draw one card at a time. Discuss
the image on the card. What emotion might it be? How can we tell? Have
any of us felt that way before? When? How did it feel? What would we
like others to do when we feel that way? How can we help others if they
feel that way?
● There are printable colouring pages with blank faces available online. Let
the children draw facial expressions for a chosen emotion. You could
look at images in the books you’ve read on the thematic bookshelf for
inspiration. As you work through different emotions, the children can
draw additional facial expressions.
© ILT Education 2025