Teaching Toddlers Emotions
5 Fun and Easy Ways to Teach Toddlers Emotions
Teaching toddlers about emotions is challenging, and it is also a very important part of their growth and development. Toddlers typically experience tremendous amounts of learning during this stage. However, the toddler age is also often a season with lots of big feelings, and naturally so. Remember, they are just beginning to develop their understanding of the world and only have a couple of years of experience. Most toddlers won’t be able to even name feelings, let alone manage them, until they have had more experience and are able to develop a foundational understanding of emotions.
While a toddler is going through this period of development, life can feel really challenging. Not only for the toddler experiencing the big feelings, but also for the parents, families, and caregivers who are spending so much of their days wiping tears and calming tantrums. The challenge is so prevalent we’ve all come to know this stage as the “terrible twos”.
Luckily, you don’t have to wait for your toddler to just figure it out on their own or to grow out of some phase. There are lots of things you can do to help your toddler learn about emotions. In this article, I will share some of my favorite ways to help toddlers learn about emotions.
Hi, my name is Natasha and I am an Early Childhood Educator. I have been working with children from birth to age five for almost ten years, and I am eager to share what I have learned and experienced over the years with you in hope of easing the challenges of childcare. In the sections below, I talk a little bit about some of the quick and easy ways I teach toddlers about emotions in my toddler classrooms.
How do toddlers learn about emotions?
Toddlers have a very concrete understanding of the world, meaning the easiest things for them to learn about are physical tangible things. For example, toddlers will often learn words they can associate with a physical object very quickly. Words like milk, toy, mama, dada, etc. This is naturally how the developing brain works.
Emotions are abstract concepts, meaning they are not physical and cannot be tied to a tangible object. This makes learning and developing understanding of emotions a little more challenging. The secret to teaching toddlers about emotions is to find ways of exploring these abstract concepts in concrete ways. Here are some favorites for me and my toddlers.
Quick and easy ways to teach toddlers about emotions
Books
Books offer amazing opportunities to explore abstract concepts in more concrete ways. You can utilize this strategy while reading any book with characters. Simply pause throughout the book and talk about how the characters are feeling. Be specific and mention what tells you that the character is feeling that way. You might say “oh look at her big smile, I think she’s feeling happy” or “Aw, he’s pouting and crying, it looks like he might be feeling sad”
There are also many wonderful books written specifically about emotions. One all time favorite in my toddler classrooms, and a book I bring out multiple times a year, is “The Color Monster” by Anna Llenas. It tells a sweet and simple story about identifying and sorting out our feelings because too many at once can be quite overwhelming. The structure of the book lends itself well to concrete learning by offering toddlers many concrete associations they can create to help develop an understanding of the emotion.
There are many other great books as well. Some broad and general and others more specific to a particular emotion. Broad books are great for introducing, discussing, practicing and reviewing emotions in general, and specific books are great for when your toddler is struggling with a particular emotion like anger or sadness.
2. Songs
Not all toddlers love sitting down to read a book, but all toddlers, at least every toddler I have met in almost ten years as an educator, has enjoyed listening to songs. Songs are always a fun and engaging way to introduce and practice vocabulary. With the right songs you can help your toddler develop their emotional vocabulary and conceptual understanding.
Here is one based on characters from a series of books about emotions!
3. Movement
Craving movement is a natural desire for toddlers, and sometimes it’s the best way they learn. Incorporating movement into learning actually helps the brain to process and remember information more easily. So whenever your toddler is just bouncing off the walls, you can lean into their energy and practice emotions with one of my favorite emotions movement activities. This one is so loved, it is often requested by both my toddlers and preschoolers. You can find a FREE PRINTABLE with the full song when you click here, but basically it goes like this…
Emotions Movement (to the tune of “If you’re happy and you know it”)
If you’re happy and you know it, clap your hands (clap clap)
If you’re angry and you know it, stomp your feet (stomp stomp)
If you’re sad and you know it, make a frown (boo hoo)
If you’re scared and you know it, hide your face (oh no!)
If you’re excited and you know it, shout hooray! (hooray!)
I love expanding on this activity by asking my older toddlers and preschoolers to show me how they use their body to show a feeling. It is so fun to see their angry crossed arms and excited dance moves. They also have a blast watching each other scrunch their faces in different ways to show different emotions.
4. Emotions Poster
Because toddlers are such concrete learners, visuals play a huge role in their learning. Simply hanging a poster showing different emotions, in a place where they can see it often, can help to support teaching toddlers emotions. You can make one at home by printing or drawing faces. A fun way to make an emotions poster is to take photos of people in your family making different faces and label each with the emotion it represents. There are also so many cute and fun emotion posters available online that have real or realistic faces. The one below comes in a set with other posters than help teach self regulation and emotional awareness. You can also find a free printable when you click here.
5. Feelings Chart
As your toddler begins to understand emotions better, you can start to incorporate more practice using a feelings chart. A feelings chart is a tool that helps to encourage your toddler to think about how they are feeling and express or communicate that in a concrete way. Again there are many you can purchase like the feelings charts below.
Fun and easy ways to teach toddlers about emotions
1.Reading Books Books:
Emotions are an abstract concept and toddlers are concrete learners. Books and stories are a really great way to help toddlers explore abstract concepts in more concrete ways. It essentially helps to make the learning more accessible based on their learning style during that stage of development.
Here is one of my favorites: The Color Monster
2. Songs:
Songs and music are always a huge part of our day in my toddler classrooms. They not only help to support and promote language development, but they offer fun, engaging, and dynamic opportunities to learn about a topic. Some songs offer more learning opportunities than others but a good song used well is a great support for toddler learning.
I share some of my toddler favorites over on my Instagram.
3. Movement Activities:
Incorporating movement into learning is a great way to support a kinesthetic learner, someone who learns best through hands-on interaction, but it also helps all learners, especially young learners like toddlers. The movement of the activity is just what a busy toddler needs and it helps to support their cognitive processing as they learn.
Here is a free printable of one of the most requested Emotions Themed Movement Activities in my Toddler Classrooms
4. Emotions Poster:
Because toddlers are such concrete learners, and they are still developing their language processing skills, it is essential to have visual support. Hanging an Emotions Poster somewhere in your home where your toddler can see it comfortably highly supports them learning emotions. Having it up on the wall instead of tucked away on flash cards, offers you and your child opportunities to talk about it often and in more organic ways than needing to pull out your flash cards for a formal lesson on the subject.
Here are some available on amazon.com
5. Feelings Chart:
Similarly to an Emotions Poster, a Feelings Chart also provides a concrete way for toddlers to practice emotions. This tool can be much more interactive and helps children to practice identifying and expressing their own emotions as they experience them. A toddler may do a morning check in or include this in their bedtime routine to reflect on their day. They can even use it to communicate their emotions when verbal communication is challenging.
Here are some from amazon.com
Disclaimer: This post may contain affiliate links, which means I may earn a small percentage of the purchase price, at no additional cost to you, for online orders made through my links This post is not sponsored.