Marvelous Moods

Summary

Activities help students understand and express emotions.

Materials

• The Way I Feel
• Today I Feel Silly
• Mood Fonts
• Mood Face
• Crayons
• Paper
• Vocabulary journal or notebook
• Mood Swings
• Mood Bingo
• Counters

Additional Resources

Books

The Way I Feel, by Janan Cain; ISBN 1884734715

Today I Feel Silly and Other Moods That Make My Day, by Jamie Lee Curtis; ISBN 0060245603

Background for Teachers

Moods and feelings are an everyday part of a first grader's life. As they go through the day they need to know that it is okay to feel different feelings, but they need to know the appropriate way to react to them. Students also need to be exposed to a variety of ways to express and portray moods and feelings. Writing and drama are two excellent tools students can use to express their emotions.

Intended Learning Outcomes

1. Communicate clearly in oral, artistic, written, and nonverbal form.

Instructional Procedures

Invitation to Learn

Read The Way I Feel by Janan Cain or Today I Feel Silly by Jamie Lee Curtis. As you read, discuss with your students the different moods in the book. Ask students to share examples of when they have felt that way, and how they reacted to that feeling.

Instructional Procedures

1. After discussing the book, explain that your students will make a book similar to it. If you use The Way I Feel tell them they will make a book that has a different page for each feeling. If you are using, Today I Feel Silly, they will make different faces that show the different feelings.
2. For The Way I Feel, pick one feeling a day and discuss what would make a person feel that way. For example, if you pick "happy" have the students share what makes them happy. List student responses on the board together and then demonstrate a picture you would draw for it, such as a picture of you sitting in the sun, feeling happy. For each page, use the Mood Fonts worksheet. Each mood has been done in a font that looks similar to what a mood looks like (similar to the fonts in The Way I Feel). Discuss with your class what colors you would want to use on the page, to match the mood.
3. To make the Today I Feel Silly face, give students the Mood Face worksheet. Have them decorate and color it similar to what their face looks like for the emotion you picked. They will make a booklet of about 5-6 faces, one page for each feeling.
4. Using either the book or the mood face pages read different stories to the class and have them respond to it. For example, if the character in the book is feeling sad, stop and ask the student how they think the character is feeling and have them show the page they made with that feeling.

Extensions

Curriculum Extensions/Adaptations/ Integration

• Make a mood vocabulary journal. Have each mood written on a different page. Come up with other words that they could use in their writing for that mood. Encourage them to use it in their writing.
• Play mood charades. Pick a student and tell them an emotion to act out. As they do so, the students guess what mood it is. You can use the Mood Swings book to pick a mood.
• Using the Mood Bingo worksheet, play Bingo with your class. As you select a mood, have the students share with a neighbor a time they have felt that mood and if it's not a good mood, what they did to make them feel better.
• If a student is having bad behavior, have them pick the emotion they are feeling in the Mood Swings book. Then have them choose a mood out of the book that they would like to change their mood to. Discuss with them how they can change their mood.
• For students with special needs, you may need to limit the amount of writing, or have them dictate the writing to you or to a peer. In charades, students with special needs can have a buddy act it out for them if they are unable to do it on their own.
• Higher-level students can expand the length of writing.

Family Connections

• Send home Mood Bingo worksheet and have students play it with their family.
• Have students discuss with their family a time they were all really happy. Have them draw a picture of that time and share it with the class.

Assessment Plan

• Read a story and have students draw a picture of how the character felt at the end.
• Share with your class some different scenarios. Have them match the different scenarios with how they should react to them. For example, if the scenario is about a boy who accidentally drops his lunch, have students decide if he should yell and scream, sit there and pout, or calmly ask for some help.

Bibliography

Research Basis

Villegas, A.M. & Lucas, T. (2007). The culturally responsive teacher. Educational Leadership. 64(6) 28-33.

In this article, the authors discuss that students come to classrooms with a variety of backgrounds and experiences. As teachers we need to be familiar with our students and know what they can bring to our class. We must take what knowledge they have, build upon it and connect it with what we are teaching.

Boyle, M. & Gillies, R.M. (2005). Teachers' scaffolding behaviours during cooperative learning. Asia-Pacific Journal of Teacher Education. 33(3) 243-259.

The authors of this article share with us the results of their study of conversation used in cooperative learning. They found that the way the teacher speaks to his/her class greatly affects the way students speak with one another in a cooperative learning setting. If teachers model the correct wording and questions to ask, students will pick up on it and use it with each other. By doing this, they ensure that students are getting the most out of their cooperative learning experiences.