Use a familiar children's song to identify how you can express different emotions.
What you’ll need: Yourself, (optional) paper and something to write down your ideas
What’s it for?
This activity will help you identify and share your emotions as you think about how they make your body feel. This will help you to manage some of the big feelings you might have.
Check In:
Notice how you’re feeling right now. Close your eyes and notice what’s going on inside your mind and body.
How are you feeling?
What are you thinking?
How does your body feel?
Method:
You probably know the familiar children's song If You’re Happy and You Know It… The song matches a happy feeling with an action, like clapping your hands, stamping your feet, and shouting ‘hooray!’ Can you sing through the words?
“If you’re happy and you know it clap your hands / If you’re happy and you know it clap your hands / If you’re happy and you know it and you really want to show it / If you’re happy and you know it clap your hands!”
What is another action that could show the feeling of being happy? Can you replace the words and show your new action? You might sing ‘If you’re happy and you know it ...do a dance!’ or ‘...give a smile!’
Everybody feels lots of different emotions as well as happy, such as angry, sad, worried, excited, or tired. Which feelings have you had today or this week? How did your body feel when you had that emotion? What action could you do to show that emotion?
Try writing new verses of the song for those different feelings by filling in the words to “If you’re ____ and you know it…” Sing through your song and try doing the actions for your new verses.
Extra Activity: If you’d like to, perform your song for someone in your house or over a video chat to a friend or relative. Do you think they could guess the emotion from your actions, even if you left the feeling word blank in the song?
When you’ve finished, spend a moment reflecting on the activity and ask yourself the following questions:
How did your body feel when you made actions for the different emotions? Tight or loose? Fast or slow? Tired or awake?
Which was your favourite verse that you created? What did you like about it?
Do you think most people would create the same kind of actions or different actions for each feeling? Why would they be the same or different?
Try singing your song through in a few different ways - quickly, slowly, quietly, loudly. How did it change the way it felt to sing the verses?
Conclusion:
This activity helps you to identify your emotions and how they make your body feel. This can help you to express your feelings and manage big or difficult emotions.
Take a moment to notice how you are feeling at the end of this activity. Did you discover anything surprising? What can you take away to make you feel better about yourself from this activity?
If you would like to, share something about your experience with this activity with someone you live with! Ask the person who looks after you to send us an email if you have any questions or comments about the activity, or would like to send us any pictures (info@catcorner.co.uk). Don't forget to subscribe for more fun CAT activities!
Created by Heather Dingle © June 2020
Creative Arts Used: Art
Psychological Areas Explored: Emotional Wellbeing, Communication, Self-Exploration
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These activities could be done by children of all ages, but some may need the support of their parent or carer to read the instructions or complete the activity safely.
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