Emotions and Smart Choices

Summary

Students will understand that they have the right to care about themselves and the responsibility to make smart choices.

Materials

Copies:

• Emotion cards
• Home Connection - English
• Home Connection - Spanish
• The Truth Will Make Me Free Lyrics

Materials:

• Feely Box containing a variety of sensory objects
• Smart choice cards

Music:

• "The Truth Will Make Me Free"
  Mr. Rogers music is available by permission on the CD that comes with the Prevention Dimensions lessons.
  (Rogers, Fred, Johnny Costa, Bobby Rawsthorne, and Carl McVicker, writers. Mister Rogers' You Are Special. Family Communications, 1992, CD.) Kindergarten teachers highly recommend this CD.

Vocabulary:

• rights
• emotions
• smart choice
• foolish choice

Background for Teachers

Lesson at a Glance

Introduction

1. Feelings We Feel With Our Hands vs. Feelings We Feel Inside

Strategies

2. Emotions: Right or Wrong? Bad or Good? 3. Emotion Charades

Conclusion

4. "The Truth Will Make Me Free"

Home Connection

5. Draw a picture of things that bug me and discuss emotions.

Intended Learning Outcomes

Help students to understand and invite them to state clearly:

• I have the right to care about myself.
• I have the responsibility to make smart choices when I care about myself.

Instructional Procedures

1. Feelings We Feel With Our Hands vs. Feelings We Feel Inside

   Copy emotion cards or use the ones in the lesson.
   Cue the music, "The Truth Will Make Me Free."
   Prepare a Feely Box.

   Gather the children together in a circle while playing the song "The Truth Will Make Me Free."

   Show the students the Feely Box containing a variety of sensory objects such as a warmed beanbag, cold ice pack, hard rock, soft cotton ball, smooth fabric, rough sandpaper.

   What do you think is inside the box?

   Have a few students come, one at a time, to put one hand inside the Feely Box, touch one object inside, and describe what it feels like. Record student responses on board.

   Some things, like the objects in our Feely Box, we feel with our hands. Some things we feel inside of us. The feelings we have inside of us are called emotions. All people have emotions, and all people feel many kinds of emotions. Having emotions is part of being a person.

2. Emotions: Right or Wrong? Bad or Good?

   Display the emotion cards for excited, frustrated, proud, disappointed, angry, satisfied, happy, sad, scared, safe, jealous, tired and hungry (or use actual images of children from Google Images).

   Is _______ emotion bad? Is ________ emotion good? (Emotions aren't right or wrong, bad or good. They are simply emotions.)

   The value of emotions is they let us know if something needs to change. Emotions are feelings that help us choose what to do next.

   We either make a smart choice or a foolish choice after we feel an emotion. Smart choices we make help us get what we need, and foolish choices do not help us get what we need. Emotions help us know what we need to do to make a choice to care about ourselves. We all have a right to care about ourselves.

   Help students to understand and invite them to state clearly:

   • I have the right to care about myself.
   • I have the responsibility to make smart choices when I care about myself.
   • Rights are guaranteed conditions.
   • For example, everyone is guaranteed a hook to hang his/her coat on or crayons to color with during coloring time.
   • That means everyone has a right to a hook or a right to use crayons.
   • It is just part of being in our classroom.
   • In the same way, everyone has a right to be kind to himself/herself by experiencing his/her own emotions and expressing them to others.
   • By taking care of ourselves this way, we are making smart choices.

   Encourage children to give examples of smart choices and foolish choices when responding to emotions. Use the enclosed smart choice cards if they need ideas.
   
   

   Have children show the sign language for "smart" or "foolish" as you read different choices. Smart -- (The mind is bright.) The middle finger is placed at the forehead, and then the hand, with an outward flick, turns around so that the palm faces outward. This indicates a brightness flowing from the mind.
   Sternberg, M. L., & Sternberg, M. L. (1998). American Sign Language dictionary. New York: HarperPerennial. p. 640

   Foolish -- (Thoughts flickering back and forth.) The right "Y" hand [middle three fingers tucked down in a hang loose sign], thumb almost touching the forehead, is shaken back and forth across the forehead several times.
   Sternberg, M. L., & Sternberg, M. L. (1998). American Sign Language dictionary. New York: HarperPerennial. p. 258.

   Create smart choice picture cards to add to those enclosed with the lesson to remind students of smart choices they came up with on their own.

3. Emotions Charades

   Review the emotion cards for excited, frustrated, proud, disappointed, angry, satisfied, happy, sad, scared, safe, jealous, tired, and hungry, or use actual images of children from Google Images.

   Invite a child to come to the front of the class and choose a card. The child dramatizes the emotion and the class guesses which emotion card he/she is holding.

   What is a smart choice? What would be a foolish choice if you had that emotion?
   Review smart choice cards or pictures -- e.g., talking to a parent, talking to a friend, talking to a teacher, taking a deep breath.

   Making a smart choice is how we care about ourselves. This year we are going to learn all about many different smart choices we can use to care about ourselves, friends family, and our community.
   Repeat the activity according to the students' capacity to pay attention and respond meaningfully.

4. "The Truth Will Make Me Free"

   Play and sing the song, "The Truth Will Make Me Free."
   Draw a picture, of things that bug students and discuss emotions.

Additional Ideas:

Reading 1: Read aloud the book My Many Colored Days. Discuss with the students events or incidents that have left them feeling "pink," "gray," "brown," "yellow," etc. Sort emotion cards according to initial sounds. If using My Many Colored Days, sort emotions by the color connections.
(Seuss, Steve Johnson, and Lou Fancher. My Many Colored Days. New York: Knopf, 1998.)

Reading 2: Share the book How Are You Feeling? and practice naming the emotions depicted in the photographs.
(Freymann, Saxton, and Joost Elffers. How Are You Peeling?: Foods with Moods. New York: Scholastic, 2004.)

Writing: Have students draw in their writing journals the emotions they feel today, and label their pictures. Do a shared writing activity using this template.

Math: Help students graph their emotions each day or in response to a question of the day. In the center, have the students graph the results of the survey on a T-chart, bar graph, or Venn diagram.

Art: Have students use water colors and paint the color that matches their emotions today.

Music: Play the song "Chill" from the CD Something Good. Guide your class in using the "Chill Drill" as a strategy for coping with anger. Learn and sing the song together. Use it as a transition activity.

Extensions

Home Connection:

Make a copy of the "Home Connection" paper for each student. Send the Home Connection home with each student and instruct him/her to share the information with his/her family. Please have students check the "Enjoy at home" or "Please return" box.

Alternate Family Share Sheet

Bibliography

This lesson is part of the Utah State Board of Education Prevention Dimensions program