A Creative Expression project to build self-awareness & explore emotions
Feelings serve a purpose. If we pay attention to our feelings, they are very good at letting us know what we like and what we definitely do not like (triggers). Below is a simple, but fun creative expression project you can do with your child/children/students. The purpose of the project is to explore emotions and build self-awareness. This is done by allowing them to reflect on situations, notice emotions, feel sensations in the body that accompany said emotions, and identify triggers or experiences/circumstances which evoke certain feelings.
The more that children can notice, understand, and communicate feelings and emotions the easier it becomes for the parent/caretaker/teacher to understand a child's triggers, motivators, needs/wants, to assist in a healthy and productive way when big emotions arise, and support children as they navigate life.
I hope you enjoy!
Supplies: long craft paper roll, pencil, colored pencils, crayons, and/or watercolors
Step 1: Trace child's entire body
Step 2: Give child/children time to detail themselves (draw a face, a favorite outfit, add any details they would like)
Step 3: This step can be used to talk about a specific situation such as, "When Susie pushed you and you fell down how did that make you feel?" OR more open-ended, "I want you to reflect on your day, what feeling/emotion did you feel most?" (Expand on this. Let the child tell you all about it)
Step 4: Once the feeling or emotion has been identified ask the child to associate this feeling with a color.
Step 5: Ask the child where they feel this emotion in their body?
Step 6: Have the child add this color to that part/s of the body. This can be by coloring the whole area or adding patterns, shapes, lines, whatever it feels like to them.
Step 7: Open up conversation about where the emotion is felt in the body, what caused it, what is an appropriate response, what can be learned from it, etc. Creating time and space to understand and talk about feelings will let your child really study their feelings/emotions so they can learn to understand themselves and you can learn to understand them a little better too! The more you do the activity or similar activities you may begin to notice patterns such as where your child feel anxious/worried feelings, angry feelings, happy, etc.
You can repeat the steps adding in opportunity to talk about other emotions/feelings, or you can just focus on one at a time and do it again another day continuing to add feelings and color to the body.
Please let me know how it goes! And feel free to share your photos with me.
With love, light, and gratitude,
Berkleigh
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