Activity: Inside Out – Getting to Know my Emotions
MentoringPreventionEmotional LiteracyNeurodiversity
Objective:
This activity can be beneficial by creating a fun, safe environment for children to discuss emotions that may be hard to process. Emotions can be experienced separately or, as the Inside Out 1 and 2 movies show, more than one emotion can be present at the same time. This can be confusing for children. Sometimes a happy memory can trigger missing someone. This movie does a good job illustrating how all of our emotions work together to build the memories that are important to us.
Supplies:
- TV or laptop
- Ask your local library if they have Inside Out 1 or 2 for rent. The movie can also be found on select streaming channels.
- Print the worksheet (next page)
- Pencils, pens, or crayons of various colors.
Instructions:
- Watch “Inside Out or Inside Out 2”
- After the movie, sit down and discuss the movie together, including anything the children enjoyed, did not enjoy, did not understand, etc.
- Begin identifying the emotions shown throughout the movie and explore some definitions in kid-friendly terms.
- Using the worksheet (next page), invite participants to write or draw some examples into each box.
- It can be helpful if the facilitators and/or caregivers model by sharing an example.
- Once the worksheets are complete, invite participants to choose some emotions to share with the group.
- You can then create a group poster or art project to represent varying emotions.
Tips:
Any word, symbol, animal, season, or color can be used to describe how each emotion makes you feel. There are no limitations. Examples:
- “Sadness feels like a cloud on a rainy day.”
- “Sadness sounds like crying.”
- “A memory when I felt sad was when it rained on my birthday.”
