This is one of my all-time favorite preschool/toddler activities. They think it’s silly and it’s a great tool to help them identify and discuss feelings.
It’s really simple. Take pictures of your kiddo making different faces for the different emotions. You may have to demonstrate what you’re looking for and that’s totally okay. Easy ones are: happy, sad, mad, tired, surprised, scared, excited, silly. You can do as many as you can think of! Now I recommend just continuing to snap pictures – lots and lots – and then use what you get. At one point, right before we stopped, Ava was over it, so I got an “annoyed” emotion (haha).
Afterwards, I email the photos to myself (since I took the pictures with my cellphone) and put them in a word doc with the corresponding emotion word underneath.
I like to laminate them*, but you could also use plastic sleeves to protect the paper. If you laminate it, use a hole punch to make three holes. Then use key rings or binder rings to hold the book together. Ava’s been looking at the book and making faces back to her pictures.
This would be a great follow-up to the book “Today I Feel Silly” by Jamie Lee Curtis.
*I own a laminator from when I taught preschool (I got it as a Christmas give and love it and use it a lot) but you can also go to any Lakeshore Learning store- they have a giant laminator that you can use and pay by the foot.
Noticing the Happy 