Using books for emotion coaching is easy. Simply pick up the book and forget all about the words on the page. Look to the pictures for clues of how each character is feeling and show this to the tamariki.
Forget the ‘story’ just focus on what’s happening in the pictures and name any emotions that might be visible – calm, frustrated, angry, worried, happy, peaceful, delighted, surprised…
This helps tamariki to extend their vocabulary of the emotions. It’s a great idea to ask tamariki to take turns in giving it a go.
Don’t be surprised if tamariki think a character is feeling an emotion that’s different to your interpretation. This is a great way to open a conversation about about how we ‘interpret’ what others are feeling.
The key questions you might ask along the way are:
- What’s it like when we feel like that?
- How might someone know we feel this way?
- What do we like people to do when we feel like this?
- What might it be like to approach a friend of classmate or me (the teacher) to check in like that?