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Syntax is how words and morphemes combine to form phrases and sentences.

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Semantics is how words get their meaning based on the word, phrase, sentence, or text it is in.

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Pragmatics is how context contributes to meaning. This looks at how human language is used in social interactions.

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Syntax is important to ELLs because it helps them improve comprehension of the language in both reading and speaking. They have the ability to pick up on cues to improve reading proficiency and recognize connections between ideas and are able to find logical patterns.

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Semantics is important to ELLs because it helps increase the students understanding of a word and helps them to make meaning of a sentence, relationship, or context of something. It also helps them focus on logic, senses, references, word meaning, and more.

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The purpose of teaching ELLs pragmatics is to give them the tools to make a choice about how they want to sound while speaking and develop a competence while speaking. It is to teach them the appropriate language for the socio-cultural environment and values.

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One fun and easy way to practice syntax at home is Mad Libs. This will help practice correct word forms. This helps them practice verbs, nouns, adjectives, adverbs, plurals, and more. They can use the things they see around the house to help them.

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Mad Libs provide an entertaining and engaging way to teach kids about nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs, and they can be used to reinforce essential grammar, reading comprehension, and vocabulary skills. Just fill in the blank for some wordy fun!

For Growing Readers (Ages 6 - 8)

For Tweens (Ages 9 - 12)

As your reader and speller advances, they'll begin spelling multisyllabic words all while playing fun Mad Libs games like "The Spy That Cries" and "The Carrot Thief."

In the Grade 4 Workbook, the Mad Lib stories get a little more challenging, and a lot more fun! Mastering all of the lessons will give your child confidence in their reading skills both inside and outside of the classroom.

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Mad Libs Printables and Activities | Brightly

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Mad Libs provide a fun and engaging way to teach kids about parts of speech while reinforcing essential grammar, reading comprehension, and vocabulary skills.

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One quick and easy way to work on semantics at home is talking while doing everyday tasks such as getting dressed in the morning. Children can learn new vocabulary while doing everyday activities. Give your child the option: "Would you like to wear a t-shirt or sweatshirt?". As you do this have them name everything that they put on or have them tell you what they are doing. Ask them about colors, body parts, numbers, etc. Any vocabulary helps develop language and semantics.

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6 Easy Ways to Improve your Child’s Vocabulary

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Such easy ways for your child to learn new words and improve their vocabulary. Little effort needed with these every day activities.

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A quick and easy way to practice pragmatics at home with your child is to play simple games and practice taking turns. With will help them practice social interactions and putting meaning to the words and game they are playing.

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What is pragmatic language?

Pragmatic language refers to the communicative intent, rules and social aspects of language. It is the way in which language is used to communicate in a variety of different contexts, rather than the way language is structured. A major component of pragmatic language is being able to read the cues of the communication partner and following conversational rules.

How will I know if my child has a problem with pragmatic language?

Often times, children who demonstrate challenges regarding pragmatic language will have difficulties sharing, using appropriate eye contact, initiating and maintaining conversations and joining in during structured activities with peers. They may also present weaknesses when participating in "make believe" activities, have a limited variety of language that they use, have poor storytelling skills and prefer to play alone rather than with other children. Some children have trouble understanding emotions and feelings which may negatively impact their interactions with others. This may also lead to challenges with perspective taking (i.e. imagining how someone else feels).

A few ideas to facilitate pragmatic language skills at home:

Participate in pretend play activities with your child

Play simple games to encourage turn taking

Check out this blog for some game ideas!

Participate in group activities with peers

Create stories together

Practice making music with different instruments

Role play scenarios in which there are problems and solutions (i.e. finding a toy in a story, ordering food in a restaurant)

Allow your child to lead during motivating activities

Work on greetings with familiar people (i.e. mailman, family friend, grandparents)

Individualized treatment sessions help to encourage appropriate social awareness skills. Children benefit significantly from structured social group activities to help practice appropriate pragmatic language skills as well! For more information on ways to help encourage pragmatic language and social skills, please contact a licensed speech-language pathologist.

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Pragmatic Language: Building Social Skills for Your Child - North Shore Pediatric Therapy

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Pragmatic language refers to the communicative intent, rules and social aspects of language. It is the way in which language is used to communicate in a variety of different contexts, rather than the way language is structured. A major component of pragmatic language is being able to read the cues of the communication partner and following conversational rules.

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Have your students write about their own life such as a morning message or weekly "news letter". This will help introduce sentence structure with 3-4 words per sentence. If you do a morning message this can include number words, days of the week, months, and more. This is great for vocabulary development.

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A morning message is the perfect way to engage your students the minute they walk through the door. Answering a question with no right or wrong answer allows learners to discover and articulate what's important to them and supports their social-emotional growth. Not only that, the questions can spark important conversations that bring your community together on a deeper level. Here are some of our favorite morning message ideas teachers are using to connect with their students.

1. What are you thankful for?

Start the day off on the bright side of the street.

Source: @chiarasclassroom

2. How can you prepare for the day?

Set your intention and finish strong.

Source: @annainroom123

3. What is your focus this week?

A brand new week is always a good time to think about things differently.

Source: @selebrateyou Do Things Differently

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4. What makes you unique?

In other words, what characteristics make you, you?

Source: @ms_boyers_cabin

5. How can you use your words today?

Kind words show we care about our community.

Source: @pearlsandwisdom Positive Words

6. What will you choose to do today?

How will you determine your own course?

Source: @selebrateyou Chooseday

7. What do you see when you gaze at the sky?

Take a closer look at the big wide world around you.

Source: @cookiestocrayons

8. What is meaningful to you?

Dig deeper into your self-awareness.

Source: @selebrateyou Things You Won't Give Up

9. How can you be a good friend today?

Because community is important.

Source: @pearlsandwisdom Friends

10. Sometimes friendship is hard.

Thinking out strategies and solutions ahead of time helps avoid painful situations.

Source: @selebrateyou What Will You Do

11. Where do you travel in your dreams?

Dream big.

Source: @fourth_grade_flock

12. What is a "do-over" for you?

So many fun things to choose from.

Source: @pearlsandwisdom Do Over

13. What makes you feel proud of yourself?

Celebrate the moments that build self-esteem.

Source: @selebrateyou Top of the World Tuesday

14. What makes you feel loved?

Discover your love language.

Source: @teachinginstripes

15. What would your story be?

Put yourself in the main character's shoes and rewrite the story.

Source: @selebrateyou Things Tuesday

16. How will you grow this week?

What can you shift to be more productive?

Source: @selebrateyou Shift

17. We don't say we can't. We say "not yet."

One of the cornerstones of a growth mindset.

Source: @pearlsandwisdom Not Yet

18. If you had a superpower, how would you change the world?

Widening the scope on how we can use our gifts.

Source: @selebrateyou Tell Me About It Tuesday

19. How many teeth do you have?

Hey, it's a big thing when you're six!

Source: 2thriftytargetteacher

20. What is your favorite part of this season?

What makes you happy in this time and place?

Source: @miss_oldani

21. How do you care for a friend?

Actions speak louder than words.

Source: @pearlsandwisdom Friday Feels

22. What is important to you?

The things you want more of reveal your priorities.

Source: @helloadventures06

23. What do you love about your classmates?

What are the gifts of the people in our community?

Source: @texasteachingchicks

24. How will you exercise your brain today?

Mental gymnastics keeps our brains limber.

Source: @pearlsandwisdom Work Out Wednesday

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24 Morning Message Ideas to Get Your Day Started on the Right Foot

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Kick off the day right! Here are some of our favorite morning message ideas that teachers are using to connect with their students.

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Sentence Combination: Have your students combine short sentences together to make a longer and more detailed sentence. Help them understand sentence structure/syntax. Show them how good sentences are well constructed and formed.

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Improving writing by combining sentences

In these worksheets, students are given a few paragraphs of text made up of many short sentences. Students are asked to combine the short sentences where appropriate into longer sentences to make the text read more smoothly.

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Combining sentences worksheetss. In these worksheets, students are given a few paragraphs of text made up of many short sentences. Students are asked to combine the short sentences where appropriate into longer sentences to make the text read more smoothly. Free grammar and writing worksheets from K5 Learning.

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Explicit Instruction: Teach your students how verbs, adjectives, nouns, etc. help add to a sentence. This can be taking time to teach the difference between nouns, verbs, and adjectives and creating sentences with them. Have them act out the adjectives, find nouns in the room, and give examples of verbs.

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312 Parts of Speech (aka word classes, e.g. nouns, verbs, ad...

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A selection of English ESL parts of speech (aka word classes, e.g. nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs) printables

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Parts of Speech Sort. This is a quick and easy activity where students can sort different parts of speech or vocabulary words into different categories in a fun way.

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As my therapy room gets warmer, kids and I in summer mode, and wanting to review skills one more time before we depart for summer break, I created a quick and easy review of parts of speech.

I found the template over at DLTK (check it out here). I wrote noun, verb, and adjective on the cones. I wrote various words on the scoops for them to sort. My students had a blast watching the ice cream cones grow.

Then we used our parts of speech to make sentences about ice cream ("The ice cream tastes cold." "The ice cream man makes delicious smoothies."). I laminated all the pieces for safe keeping. Hope you can use this easy preparation activity to review learned concepts of the year!

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As my therapy room gets warmer, kids and I in summer mode, and wanting to review skills one more time before we depart for summer break, I created a quick and easy review of parts of speech. I found the template over at DLTK (check it out here).

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Semantic Gradient: This is an activity where you shift the meaning from one word to it's antonym. For example, huge and small, miniature and enormous. This will help students understand how there are different words to describe things in a more specific way.

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Greenwood, S.C., & Flanigan, K. (2007, November). Overlapping Vocabulary and Comprehension: Context Clues Complement Semantic Gradients. The Reading Teacher, 61(3), 249-254.

Stahl, S.A., & Nagy, W.E. (2006). Teaching word meanings. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

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Semantic gradients are a way to broaden and deepen students' understanding of related words. Students consider a continuum of words by order of degree. Semantic gradients often begin with antonyms, or opposites, at each end of the continuum. This strategy helps students distinguish between shades of meaning.

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Create a descriptive chart. One fun way to do this is by choosing a word and having the students think of synonyms and describing words to describe that word such as dog: fluffy, tiny, brown, bark.

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Mar 29, 2013 - This Pin was discovered by Nicky Sierra. Discover (and save!) your own Pins on Pinterest

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Create a chart and have the students describe how it looks, sounds, feels, and tastes. This will help the students think of specific describing words to help describe something and make their writing and vocabulary more interesting. Example: pizza tastes chewy, smells savory, looks cheesy, feels fluffy.

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Here are some amazing apple activities the class participated in this past week. Here's a pocket chart activity. This is sung to the tune...

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Create a visual chart as a class. This chart will be something the students can use all year long while speaking and writing. The chart has verbal expressions and things they can use in written language to describe something.

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Picture It! Anchor Chart for Verbal Expression & Written Language

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Sep 22, 2014 - A great anchor chart to assist students with improving verbal expression and written language. This was designed to accompany our Picture IT! for Verbal Expression & Written Language product. This anchor chart in conjunction with the Picture IT! product provides students with a means of improv...

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Role Playing: Provide your students time to practice language skills that they have learned. Find something that your students do on a daily basis such as going to a store. Have them practice talking in that scenario using appropriate language and social cues.

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“Fun Activities That Help Develop Language Learning in Children | British Council.” Www.britishcouncil.my, www.britishcouncil.my/english/courses-children/resources/fun-activities-that-develop-language-learning#:~:text=Games%20like%20Scrabble%2C%20Pictionary%20or.

“Handy Handout #233:  Teaching the Fundamentals of Grammar and Syntax at Home.” Handyhandouts.com, 2022, www.handyhandouts.com/viewHandout.aspx?hh_number=233&nfp_title=Teaching+the+Fundamentals+of+Grammar+and+Syntax+at+Home#:~:text=Have%20your%20child%20organize%20the.

Kidspot, Bilingual. “6 Easy Ways to Improve Your Child’s Vocabulary.” Bilingual Kidspot, 13 June 2016, bilingualkidspot.com/2016/06/13/improve-your-childs-vocabulary/?utm_medium=social&utm_source=pinterest&utm_campaign=tailwind_tribes&utm_content=tribes&utm_term=811901604_32386980_269541. Accessed 28 Feb. 2024.

“Pragmatic Language: Building Social Skills for Your Child - North Shore Pediatric Therapy.” Www.nspt4kids.com, www.nspt4kids.com/therapy/pragmatic-language-building-social-skills-for-your-child#:~:text=A%20few%20ideas%20to%20facilitate%20pragmatic%20language%20skills%20at%20home%3A&text=Participate%20in%20group%20activities%20with. Accessed 28 Feb. 2024.

“Semantic Features, Compare and Contrast, Make Predictions.” Teaching Semantic Figures , speechtimefun.com/teaching-semantic-features/.

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Conversation Starters: Teach your students conversation starters that are appropriate for their age and situations in which they can use them. Have them talk to their peers and practice their responses. Model this and have them practice with a partner.

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Parade: Entertainment, Recipes, Health, Life, Holidays

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Whether you're at a party talking to someone you've just met or you're spending time with friends you haven't seen in a while, coming up with good conversation starters that aren't just boring small talk can be a struggle. When you begin a discussion with someone, you want it to be interesting, insightful and entertaining, and that means saying something or asking a question more than, "So, this weather, huh?"

Of course, what you say to someone depends on where you are. You're not going to say the same thing to a first date as you would to, say, a child. Below are a set of conversation starters and topics that you can use whether you've met someone for the first time or you want to spark a deeper talk. We have this list of conversation starters broken down by the situation, including a first meeting, career networking, deeper conversations, funny conversations with kids and first dates.

Conversation Starters For Any Situation

1. Tell me about yourself.

2. Have you done anything exciting lately?

3. What made you smile today?

4. How did you meet the host?

5. What's your favorite form of social media?

6. What was the last good book you read?

7. Do you listen to any podcasts? Which is your favorite?

8. What do you think is the best show on Netflix right now?

9. Have you been on any interesting trips lately?

10. What do you think has been the best movie of the year so far?

11. What song do you wish you could put on right now?

12. Are you a cat person or a dog person?

13. Do you think you're an introvert or an extrovert?

14. If you didn't have the job you have now, what would you be?

15. What's your strangest hidden talent?

16. What is something people are always surprised to learn about you?

17. What is the most rewarding part of your career?

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250 Good Conversation Starters for Any Social Situation

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Whether you're at a party talking to someone you've just met or you're spending time with friends you haven't seen in a while, coming up with good conversation starters that aren't just boring small talk can be a struggle.

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Practice Problem Solving: Have your students collaborate on working through a problem. Have them practice resolving conflicts and making a group decision. Have them practice sharing ideas and giving their perspectives.

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SplashLearn Blog – Educational Resources for Parents, Teachers & Kids

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15 Fun Problem-Solving Activities for Growth Mindset

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Explore these best problem-solving activities for kids to keep them entertained throughout the day while building growth skills in them

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Showing Emotions: Have your students practice showing/expressing their emotions in an appropriate way. Show them how they should act both verbally and physically with different emotions. Help teach them nonverbal cues and how they can show empathy. Discuss each emotion and how they can reflect on their emotions.

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Teaching emotions for kids is easy with these social-emotional learning ideas and activities for the classroom.
Social-emotional learning is a key component in teaching young children. You'll find that a good part of your day is spent educating your students about how to recognize, manage and express feelings. Because of this, below are engaging ways to teach emotions for kids in your classroom.

Everything You Must Know to Teach Emotions to Kids
Why do students need help learning how to express healthy emotions and feelings?
Students learn healthy emotional habits and ways of expressing their feelings in several ways. They learn at home as well as in their interactions with their family and friends. Children tend to pick these things up naturally. They learn by watching how others respond and mimicking their behavior. Many kids are active in their churches, community centers, sports, and hobbies. In those places, they learn how to interact with friends and neighbors as well.
But, what about the students who don't have such opportunities?
It's up to us, as educators, to model, teach, and encourage them to practice healthy emotional responses to everyday situations and events! Helping children to express their feelings and handle difficult situations with calm is our ultimate goal.

1. Helping Kids Identify Different Emotions

Children should be taught the language necessary to label and identify the different emotions they may experience. The reason is, we need to let them know that feeling different emotion is normal. By giving them the vocabulary needed to describe how they're feeling, you are encouraging them to express themselves productively.

Recognizing Facial Expressions and Body Language: Children need to learn how to identify their own emotions, as well as others. One way to do this is by learning to pay attention to their own body signals, such as a frown and queasy stomach when nervous, or balled fists and tight shoulders when angry. Once they can recognize it in themselves, they can pick up on facial expressions and body language of others and then learn to react accordingly. In your morning meetings, perhaps spend five minutes modeling and discussing different emotional states.

Clip Chart: One way to encourage recognition of feelings is to provide a visual reference for them to use. A clip chart helps students to recognize and identify how they are feeling. They simply place a clip on the chart in the space that shows how they are feeling.

2. Teaching Kids Healthy Expression of Emotions

We all feel the full range of emotions. Wherever they are on the happy or sad, engaged or bored, proud or embarrassed, ends of the spectrum, we can help them express those emotions in a safe and healthy way. The classroom is a great place to learn and practice!

"I Feel..." Statements: To learn how to express their feelings appropriately, students need to be taught how to use "I feel..." statements. Instead of screaming insults at another child who broke his crayon, little Johnny can say "I feel sad that you broke my crayon", opening up the communication between the two students. This allows for healthy conflict resolution.

Coping with Extreme Emotions: Sometimes we must step in and help kids deal with the emotional roller coasters they sometimes find themselves on. Their extreme emotions get out of control and they need help finding their way back to calmness. We must realize that addressing the whole brain is key to understanding how to help them best.

Teaching Emotional Rights: It's important for children to understand and assert their rights when it comes to emotions. This helps them maintain healthy boundaries with their friends and peers, and be respectful to teachers and adults.

3. Connecting Kids to Experiences with Emotions

Children learn to embrace their emotional state by realizing that it is normal and ok to feel the way they do. It's our job to give them opportunities to label their feelings correctly. Emotional memory is strong! We can harness that power by helping students connect their experiences in the classroom with their emotions. By recognizing and acknowledging their feelings during a learning activity or classroom event, we can increase the chances of it sticking in our students' long-term memory. You see, that's why emotions for kids is so important!

Journaling: Encouraging students to journal about their feelings is helpful. They express their feelings by writing about learning tasks, field trips, or school events. For one, we often use this learning method in our classrooms for improving handwriting, spelling, vocabulary, and of course writing skills.

Emotion Sort: Have students sort pictures of children with experiencing different emotions. By doing so, they will gain practice recognizing facial expressions and body language and therefore, feel more confident understanding their own and others feelings.

4. Teaching Kids about Brain Biology and Emotions

The human brain is a fascinating subject, even for the youngest learners. Teach them what the parts of the brain are called, and talk about how different parts of the brain control their emotions and feelings.

Upstairs and Downstairs: To try to explain how the parts of our brain work together, and how the emotions part can sometimes take over, try explaining it in terms they can understand, such as the "upstairs and downstairs."

5. Encouraging Kids to Have a Positive Mindset

Additionally, add in self-talk and self-motivation skills. Positive and encouraging self-talk will help your students succeed, and create a more positive classroom environment overall. For example, you can teach them ways to feel good and focus on positivity. Here are ways to influence them to have a good attitude at school and teach emotions for kids.

Create a Vision Board: Vision boards are used in all types of professions, from business to graphic design. They can be used in the classroom too! Help children visualize what they desire and what makes them happy. Precisely, when they have an image in their mind of what makes them thrive, they are more likely to reach their own goals, and ultimately succeed in the classroom.

My Heart Map: This creative activity encourages children to thoughtfully consider what makes them happy and depict it on paper. It's a great way to help them own and recognize their emotions and focus more on having a positive outlook.

Teach Growth Mindset: Any lesson about emotions and feelings can easily be integrated into a growth mindset curriculum plan. The two go together like peas and carrots!

Resources for Teaching Emotions with Kids

Emotions Self-Awareness Unit

The Emotions: Social Emotional Learning Unit includes 5 detailed, research-based lessons to teach emotions for kids. It is filled with hands-on and mindful activities. The curriculum teaches children about how their brain controls their emotions. It also teaches how to identify and express how they are feeling, and ways to encourage a positive mindset.

Emotions Book Companions

This emotional awareness resource includes 5 book companions on popular children's books that relate to feelings and emotions (The Color Monster; The Feelings Book; Glad Monster, Sad Monster; F is for Feelings; In My Heart).

Children will participate in classroom discussions and book chats, share their feelings in written form, and participate in fun, engaging activities that build emotional awareness and social skills.

This emotions book companion resource includes a detailed lesson plan, guided questions, anchor chart, writing response, and follow-up activities (printable and digital included) for all 5 books. Great for distance learning and remote teaching of social-emotional skills!

FREE Emotions Lesson & Feelings Journal

Help students learn to identify and process their feelings in an emotions journal.

Download a free lesson and activities on identifying and labeling emotions from the Emotions unit by clicking the image below and signing up.

Social-Emotional Learning Curriculum

The mind + heart Social Emotional Learning Curriculum includes 8 units with 5+ detailed, character education, research-based LESSONS filled with TONS of hands-on and mindful ACTIVITIES that encourage children to express themselves and build important emotional and social skills. It includes emotions for kids!

More About Teaching Emotions
Emotional Skills Books and Videos Self Regulation Strategies, Books & Videos Empathy Skills Books & Videos PIN for Later

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Teaching emotions for kids is easy with these social emotional learning ideas and activities that teach children about emotions in the classroom.