Emotion Pebbles
As part of Children’s mental health week I wanted to do an activity which gave us the opportunity to discuss our own emotions. This is something that I have often tried to make a focus with my children but is often very difficult to do as it is such an abstract concept. Using play as a stimulus for a prompt for this topic is a good way to do it as there is no pressure to answer questions and can be led by your children instead.
Set Up
So for this emotions activity I used pebbles we had previously collected on a trip to the beach and a permanent maker to draw the faces on. I used some semolina that we had been using on the tray for a different activity. After drawing the faces on the pebbles I actually put them face down so that the children couldn’t see the faces.
So my children were naturally very intrigued when they saw five random pebbles on the tray and weren’t sure what to do. I said that they could each choose one pebble. Once they chose one and saw the faces they wanted to know why they had faces on them. They were also quick to spot that the faces looked different and this also started a discussion. We began discussing, led by them, why they had different expressions and what might have caused them to feel this way. They also were very keen to do something to help the pebble that was angry and the pebble that was sad. They definitely did not want the pebble to be sad any more. Without prompting they began creating their own narratives with the pebbles, with the happy pebble trying to cheer up the sad pebble. We then started to talk about times we might have been sad, angry, worried and happy. I wanted to ensure that they knew that I also felt all these emotions too and that was ok too. This activity is a great way to discuss emotions with children and and important part of children’s mental health.
