10 activities to work emotions

The emotional development of human beings begins from birth, so it is important to stimulate these innate abilities in order to raise a child who is able to communicate and develop appropriately. Fortunately, there are activities to increase the progress of emotions in children, even if they are babies.

Dynamic activities to work emotions

Since we have established the importance of a correct development of emotions in children, we offer you a list with several activities that you can try, to stimulate your child during the various stages of their growth:

story reading

One of the main activities to work on empathy in a young child, who already has a certain degree of understanding of language, is reading stories. By choosing the right titles, you can focus the activity on the emotions that the characters experience, for example.

Among some options in stories to work on emotions, we recommend you try The Color Monster, by Anna Llenas, or The Bestiary of Emotions, by Adrienne Barman, which will focus on various situations where special attention is paid to what the characters feel..

dictionary of emotions

A dictionary of emotions can be easily made at home and you will only need a piece of cardboard, a couple of magazines or newspapers that you do not use, scissors, a marker and glue.

These elements will be used in order to select faces in the documents that show various emotions, to group them on the piece of cardboard and identify them with the marker.  

interactive toys

Montessori toys, for example, offer a wide variety of ideas in interactive games with which to entertain and complement the activities of 2-year-old children, since at this stage babies develop skills that make them a little more independent by being able to control more your limbs easily.

In this sense, this type of toys, depending on the type, can help you to increase coordination especially and, in the case of emotional benefit, there is the alternative of acquiring products such as the Montessori model: my first box of emotions.

emotion bingo

At the age of 3, a child can already begin to learn about numbers, their order, colors, images and, of course, emotions. Therefore, among the activities for 3-year-olds that increase their ability to identify emotions is an alternative version of the classic game of bingo.

In the Bingo of Emotions, instead of numbers or objects, characters or faces with different emotions will be shown. When removing a particular emotion from the pot where the chips are held, the child must identify it on the card. This makes the activity fun, competitive, and stimulating enough to interest a toddler this age.

Recreation in mirrors

Another simple and inexpensive option in emotional intelligence activities is to use mirrors. It can be very useful when teaching little ones to identify each of the emotions based on the expressions on people’s faces.

To do this, give the child a small mirror and instruct him to put it in front of his face and imitate a particular emotion, be it happiness, sadness, surprise, etc. With this activity it will be easier for you both to express yourself and to identify what the people around you are feeling.

diary of emotions

One of the emotions activities that parents, professionals and experts recommend is the creation of an emotions diary.

This alternative is especially practical if the child has some limitation in expressing himself emotionally or showing empathy, since, in many cases, shyness plays a very important role when it comes to feelings.

If you want to carry it out, you must indicate to the little scribe in a notebook what you felt throughout the day, that no one will read it and everything is valid. This includes how he made her feel about the day at school, the visit to the park with his cousins, or that family party at grandma’s house, for example.

group games

Group games are part of the activities for children that excite them the most and also take advantage of some emotion games. For example, one member of the group can imitate an emotion as well as possible and whoever correctly identifies it first wins the round.

performance theater

The theater of representation does not necessarily need puppets, since the characters can be the same toys of the little ones. During the development of the “play” the child will be given indications so that her character shows a certain emotion, so that it is increasingly easier for him to recognize and feel empathy.

virtual applications

Working on children’s emotions is not always an easy task and requires some time, but the mastery that children have over virtual devices at a young age may surprise many.

One advantage you can get to his love of dad’s tablet or phone is by downloading apps designed especially for emotional development. For example, you can find one that shows a human face expressing any emotion and the child must select the correct answer from a series of options. These types of applications are usually free and very simple to handle so that even the little one can access on their own.

communication pot

Emotions for children are sometimes a bit difficult to process, so an option that provides a little anonymity can be well received and this is where the boat of communication comes in.

It is a simple jar or empty box where each member of the family or the group of children will write how they felt at some point in the day and, at the end of the week, a small meeting will be held to talk about that particular emotion. and what tools to take to process it in the healthiest way.

Conclution

As we can see, not only emotions should be worked on in children. Also at home, with their parents, children learn to know them every day and it can be done through very fun and interactive activities.