Fall Activities For Preschoolers To Teach Emotions: Leaf Faces

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Inside: Simple fall activities for preschoolers with making emotional leaf faces to teach emotions. Dealing with emotions is hard, but here is a bright side. It is a skill that can be practiced through play and fun kids activities

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First time ever my daughter watched a children’s movie something happened. I haven’t expected this reaction. It was about 10 minutes to the end of the movie when I ran to take a quick shower. Happy to steal away those 10 minutes for me…10 minutes under the warm shower after an exhausting day. It seemed like I won the lottery. It was a moment when I was getting out of the shower when I heard my daughter crying. Instantly I felt the punch in my stomach. I thought something had happened. I ran down leaving wet footprints behind me to see if she was okay.

She was rolling on the bed, screaming and crying. It was a minute or two until she could finally tell me what happened. She said: – Mommy, the movie is over.

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Children have a hard time dealing with emotions when is time to stop what are they doing at the moment. Whether it is sitting with its shoulders down or throwing tantrums, it’s hard to watch your child unhappy. Emotions that they experience so randomly can make them feel like their whole world collapses, even when they think it’s not such a big deal.
Dealing with emotions is hard, but here is a bright side. It is a skill that can be practiced. The more you can address how your child feels, the better she will be able to overcome emotion.

Teach your preschooler emotions with a simple fall activity

Teaching about feelings and emotions can be fun if it is done through play. And there are so many ways.

Here is one of our favourite fall activities for kids that we have been doing for the second year in a row. We started when my daughter was two-year-old and she still loves it. Except now she is able to draw faces of her own which makes her super proud.

There are two aspects and main benefits for young kids with this activity:

simple craft activity for your kids to practice fine motor skills drawing and holding a marker
learning about emotions through play

Teaching emotions can be done in a fun way and with very simple materials. After this fun fall activity, you will have even more materials to play and learn.

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Drawing emotional faces on leaves

Materials:

fall leaves gathered in nature
sharpie markers or washable markers for younger kids
a book or cards on identifying emotions (more about books below)

How to play:

Invite your little one and introduce the activity. Start by drawing faces on leaves, one by one.
After each face is done ask him how that leaf feels. Start with simple ones.

We also used the fun book Foods with moods for a little bit of inspiration. The vegetable and fruit faces are so funny to kids and also a great way to introduce the concept of fillings and emotions to a young child.

What I like about it, it contains questions to demonstrate each emotion. It makes it easy for your child to talk about feelings and thoughts he has while looking at silly vegetable faces.

Some other great books to teach kids how to identify their emotions are:

After you have gone through all emotions give a washable marker to your child and ask him to draw the emotion he wants. You can think of one emotion together, pick leaves for both of you and draw together. That way she can compare and copy yours if she needs help.

Holding markers and making shapes is great for developing fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination.

After you are done and all your leaves have their emotional faces you can play a little game.

Pick one emotion and ask your child to find a matching leaf. For example: “Can you find a leaf that feels happy? ” or “Can you find a leaf that feels sad? ”
After he picks a leaf you can talk a little bit about it. For example, why is he feeling happy, or sad, or angry… What would make him feel like that?

If your child loves imaginative play, this fall activity is perfect for that too. Emotion leaves are great for pretend play. You can even set up a little scene in a small theatre where you can play your own drama with emotional characters.

So don’t wait for the next time when your child’s world collapses, think about ways you can learn about emotions in a fun way.

Parents who enroll in the Resourceful Parent program find simple tactics to connect better with their child and lower tantrums, especially screen time tantrums. Resourceful parent program is designed to engage your child in solo play and is packed with resources and manageable ideas that help a child to develop valuable skills, among them is to be prepared for transitioning from one activity to another. A smooth transition is something that definitely lowers the stress for the whole family.