Feelings poster
Learning outcomes:
- Students name the 10 different feelings and emotions on the Feelings poster.
- Students use an emotion word in a sentence.
Purpose of learning experience
- Students build a vocabulary of feelings and emotions and learn to recognise and name emotions in themselves and others.
- Students’ increasing confidence in expressing feelings and emotions with appropriate verbal and non-verbal language helps promote self-regulation.
- Students understand that personal statements can start with ‘I feel …’ or ‘I am …’, e.g. ‘I feel proud.’, ‘I am brave.’
- Students understand that pronouns can indicate emotions in others, e.g. ‘You feel …’, ‘She/he feels …’, ‘They feel.’
Printable: Feelings Poster
Making connections
Being able to tell other people how they feel is fundamental to students’ wellbeing. Students need to be able to understand and recognise their feelings in order to build emotional awareness and empathy. Linking feelings and emotions to their own experiences helps students understand themselves better and builds emotional literacy. Students can discuss how emotions influence their behaviour
For some year levels, this is a cross-curriculum unit with English and Health and Physical Education.
The activities include identifying words from First Nations Australians’ languages relevant to a topic. Cross-curriculum priority: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Histories and Cultures
Early Years Learning framework
Outcome 5: Children are effective communicators.
Children begin to understand how symbols and pattern systems work
Lesson activity
‘Feelings and faces’
Plan/implement
In a yarning circle, discuss the feelings shown on the Feelings poster. Introduce feelings vocabulary and repeat each of the feeling words. Invite children to share a time they felt happy, sad, loved, worried, angry or silly.
Use mirrors to allow children to copy and explore facial expressions as they point to and name feelings on the poster.
Encourage children to identify facial features that show different feelings. Model and have children repeat: ‘I am happy.’, ‘I feel happy.’
Model descriptive language, facial expressions, gestures and tone of voice. For example, the eyes are wide, the mouth is smiling: ‘He/she is happy.’
Encourage children to use simple sentences such as ‘He/she is …, ‘He/she feels …’
Observations / assessment opportunities
Can the child name different feelings and show them using facial expressions and gestures?
Language focus
happy, sad, surprised, worried, angry, brave, proud, silly, confused, lovedUsing feeling words, facial expressions, gestures and tone of voice to build emotional vocabulary and communication skills
I am <emotion>.
I feel <emotion>.
She is <emotion>.
He is <emotion>.
She feels <emotion>.
He feels <emotion>.
Community Languages
Allow children to share and express feelings by recounting events in their daily life using their home language.
Foundation Curriculum alignment
English: AC9EFLA08
recognise and develop awareness of vocabulary used in familiar contexts related to everyday experiences, personal interests and topics taught at school
Health and Physical Education: AC9HPFP03
express and describe emotions they experience
Lesson activity
‘Beachwalk role-play’
Plan/implement
In a yarning circle, introduce the Feelings poster and identify the 10 feelings together.
Discuss how facial expressions, body language and actions can show feelings.
Invite students to recount a time they felt each feeling shown.
Use mirrors to allow students to explore and practise making different facial expressions to express feelings.
Encourage students to use simple sentences such as ‘I feel happy because I am going to Nan’s.’
Place the emoji cards in the middle of the circle.
Model an emoji check-in. Choose a card based on how you are feeling, and say: ‘I feel <emotion> because <explanation>’.
In pairs, students complete an emoji check-in and discuss with their partner.
As a group, discuss how feelings can change throughout the day.
Observations / assessment opportunities
Can the student name different feelings?
Can the student use a feeling word to express how they feel in different situations?
Does the student use the feeling word in a Standard Australian English sentence?
Language focus
happy, sad, surprised, worried, angry, brave, proud, silly, confused, loved
I feel <emotion> because <explanation>.
Community Languages
Encourage student to share feeling words from their home language by recounting events and experiences in their lives.
Write emotion words in students’ home language in the spaces provided on the poster.
Year 1 Curriculum alignment
English: AC9E1LA01
understand how language, facial expressions and gestures are used to interact with others when asking for and providing information, making offers, exclaiming, requesting and giving commands
AC9E1LA06
understand that a simple sentence consists of a single independent clause representing a single event or idea
AC9E1LA07
understand that words can represent people, places and things (nouns, including pronouns), happenings and states (verbs), qualities (adjectives) and details such as when, where and how (adverbs)
Health and Physical Education: AC9HP2P03
identify how different situations influence emotional responses
Lesson activity
‘Feelings charades in pairs’
Plan/implement
Begin with a ‘Good morning emoji check-in’. Students each choose an emoji card that matches how they are feeling.
In a yarning circle, discuss some of the feelings selected by students.
Review the Feelings poster, feelings vocabulary and body language for expressing feelings.
Students use mirrors to practise facial expressions. Ask: ‘What happens to your mouth when you are happy? What happens to your eyes when you are surprised?’
Students work in pairs. One student selects an emoji card and acts out the feeling using facial expressions and body language. Their partner guesses which feeling it is.
After each turn, both students use a sentence to describe a time they felt that feeling: ‘I feel <emotion> when <explanation>.’
Partners swap roles and repeat with different feelings.
Return to the yarning circle and share examples of feelings and experiences.
Observations / assessment opportunities
Can the student identify and name feelings correctly?
Can the student describe personal experiences using feeling vocabulary?
Can others recognise the feeling the student is showing with their face or body?
Can the student describe what makes the feeling recognisable?
Does the student say a two-part sentence of at least six words, or two sentences with three words?
Language focus
What did you see?
| I | saw | a |
| We | ||
| She/he | an | |
| It | some | |
| They |
Community languages
Encourage students to share feeling words from their home language.
Display feeling vocabulary in English and community language/s where possible.
Value cultural ways of expressing and communicating emotions, e.g. not giving eye contact.
Year 2 Curriculum alignment
English: AC9E2LA06
understand that connections can be made between ideas by using a compound sentence with 2 or more independent clauses usually linked by a coordinating conjunction
AC9E2LY08
write words legibly and with growing fluency using unjoined upper-case and lower-case letters
AC9E2LY09
manipulate more complex sounds in spoken words and use knowledge of blending, segmenting, phoneme deletion and phoneme substitution to read and write words
Health and Physical Education: AC9HP2P03
identify how different situations influence emotional responses
Lesson activity
‘My special place – On Country picture prompt writing’
Plan/implement
In a yarning circle, review the Feelings poster, feelings vocabulary and body language for expressing feelings.
Introduce a picture of a local landscape, waterhole, bushland or significant place on Country. Say: ‘My special place is <place>. I feel <emotion the place makes you feel>.’
Students draw a picture of a special place that is important to them, their family or community.
Students write sentences describing their special place and how it makes them feel, using words from the word bank.
Students share their writing with a partner, and then in the yarning circle.
Observations / assessment opportunities
Does the student use topic-specific vocabulary in writing?
Does the student write legibly using unjoined upper- and lower-case letters?
Can the student construct simple sentences with increasing independence?
Resources needed
Feelings poster
On Country picture prompt (educator-sourced)
Paper and pencils
Crayons or coloured pencils
Language focus
happy, sad, angry, worried, proud, brave, confused, surprised, loved, silly
Community Languages
Encourage students to discuss their special place in their home language before they begin writing.
Include key vocabulary in English and community language/s where possible.
Year 3 Curriculum alignment
English: AC9E3LA02
understand how the language of evaluation and emotion, such as modal verbs, can be varied to be more or less forceful
AC9E3LY10
understand how to apply knowledge of common base words, prefixes, suffixes and generalisations for adding a suffix to a base word to read and comprehend new multimorphemic words
Health and Physical Education: AC9HP4P01
investigate how success, challenge, setbacks and failure strengthen resilience and identities in a range of contexts
Lesson activity
‘Jarli’s best weekend ever!’
Plan/implement
Review the Feelings poster, feelings vocabulary and body language for expressing feelings.
Read Jarli’s best weekend ever! together.
Discuss the main character’s feelings. Example questions could include: ‘How did Jarli feel when he played with his cousins?
How might Jarli feel when his mum went to work? Why?
What did Jarli love? Why might Jarli have felt worried?’
Ask students: ‘What do you love? What might make you feel worried?’
Observations / assessment opportunities
Does the student describe an event that appropriately matches the emotion?
Does the student draw on an example from personal experience?
Resources needed
Language focus
happy, sad, surprised, worried, angry, brave, proud, silly, confused, loved
He/she feels <emotion>.
Why is he/she <emotion>?
He/she must/might/could feel <emotion> because <description of event>.
I feel <emotion> when <description of event>.
Community Languages
Encourage students to discuss what they love doing in their home language, before writing.
Include key vocabulary in both English and community languages where possible.