Kindergarten – Social/Health – Emotions and Identity

The following pictures showcase two of the Emotions and Identity invitations I set up in the classroom during my internship to go along with our unit to understand our emotions and ourselves, focusing mainly on social-emotional learning. Along with the invitations I set up in this unit, we read various stories about our feelings and how to cope with them at school and home. We did different activities with naming our emotions and even made a book as a class, talking about things that make each of us feel certain emotions, like what makes us happy, sad, scared, etc.

These invitations were set up with the following outcomes in mind:

Social – INK.1 – Demonstrate an understanding of similarities and differences among individuals in the classroom.

a) Identify and categorize the attributes that make an individual unique (e.g., physical features, cultural interests, personality characteristics).

b) Identify and categorize factors that individuals have in common, including basic physical needs of all people (e.g., food, water, clothing, shelter, love, and belonging).

Health – USCK.3 – Explore that who I am includes more than my physical self.

d) Discuss self as an individual who has experiences that may or may not be similar to others.

e) Recognize that thoughts and feelings are not always obvious to others.

In the station above, students were invited to build a face using a variety of materials. I cut out a bunch of different eyes, eyebrows, noses, and mouths from magazines that students could use, or I provided children markers they could use to draw their faces themselves. I also provided students with a variety of papers and blank faces or heads so they could choose one that they felt looked most like themselves. I decided to do them all on blank white paper so students could colour the skin on the paper to match their skin tone. Finally, I included a mirror so students could look at their own or their friend’s faces while playing in this station.

In this station, I wanted students to focus more on emotions and how their faces look when they are feeling different emotions. I provided them with various laminated head sheets and emoji examples of facial expressions so they could use the playdough to start to build faces and emotions. This station also helped students with their fine motor skills, as playing with the playdough and shaping it helped develop their finger/hand muscles.