💡 Lesson ideas
The feelings check-in board
A fifteen-minute build that gives you thirty seconds of emotional weather data every single morning.
Naming a feeling is the first step of managing it — and a child who parks their photo under 'grumpy' at 8am just handed you the most useful assessment of the day. You'll know who needs a soft landing before the first conflict, not after.
Build and run it
- Four zones on a poster at child height: happy, sad, mad, tired (add 'excited' and 'worried' for preschool).
- Each child has a clothespin with their photo. At arrival they clip it where they are.
- Your only script: 'You put yours on mad. Thanks for telling me.' Acknowledge — never argue a child out of their zone.
- Children move their own pin during the day. The move IS the lesson: feelings change.