Emotional intelligence sounds like a really fancy shmancy thing to be teaching at the preschool level, but it's actually quite simple and something most people probably do without even realizing it. At Seedlings, we work on emotional intelligence every single day, but this month, it was a major focus as we got into the swing of the school year.
Part of increasing our emotional intelligence is recognizing feelings, in both ourselves and others. We accomplished this in a variety of ways this month, here is a look at a few of the tools we used.
The Excellerations My Feelings Chart was a big help. We took turns making faces and talking about how the person was feeling and what could have caused those feelings. The very best thing about this chart was that every child used the eyebrows as mustaches - awesome!! :)
We used these People and Emotions Photo Learning Cards to spark discussions about feelings and what might cause them.
We made our own Feelings Books, which gave the kiddos good practice making happy, sad, angry and scared faces and talking about all the things that make them feel certain ways.
Of course, the best way to practice and improve emotional intelligence in preschoolers is through personal experiences. Sometimes we have disputes among friends and that is a wonderful opportunity to point out how each child looks and have each child explain how he or she is feeling and what caused those feelings. We can also find ways to comfort each other if we are feeling sad, scared or lonely.
We're off to a wonderful start towards emotional intelligence at Seedlings!!
