There are many different types of activities to help children engage in social emotional learning skills whether through printables, conversation, or meditations. Since every child is unique their preferences for how they learn best are unique to them as well. Children who resonate well with the arts (art, music, literature, drama, etc.) can also develop their social emotional skills through these activities that they are most passionate about. The arts can also help children process their emotions. For example, if verbalization skills are limited (due to age or ease) drawing can help children express their emotions. A parent or teacher may ask their child or student to draw what they look like when they are happy, angry or patient. Then they can lead a discussion about the significance of the features the child incorporated into their drawing. (See activity below for example discussion questions.) Through these expressions of creativity children can develop their self-awareness, social awareness, and create positive relationships.
The Institute for Art Integration and STEAM shared how they promote social awareness through art activities. Through arts we can learn to take the perspective of others, find commonalities, and appreciate our differences. Through our passions and a shared community of diverse backgrounds we can also deepen positive relationships with others. The Institute shares a few examples of how to build social awareness through the arts such as listening to a song and sharing what you think each instrument might be saying as a way to think about perspective.
Whether a child has a strong interest in the arts or another subject, these activities will be engaging for anyone’s sense of creativity! Here are a few activities practicing social emotional learning skills through the arts children can do at home or at school:
Drawing Activity: Happy Me versus Angry Me
Instructions: Have your child draw two different pictures to compare side by side. First, they will draw a picture of what they look like when they are happy. Second, they will draw a picture of what they look like when they are angry. Ask your child to include in the picture examples of things that make them happy or angry. Here are some discussion questions that may be helpful when comparing the two pictures with your child:
I see that you used dark/light colors, why did you choose those colors to express each emotion?
Tell me about some of the things you chose to draw that make you feel happy or angry.
Can you describe the features you included when you drew yourself happy or angry?
What stands out the most to you about each picture?
In the classroom: Put your students in pairs and groups. After drawing their pictures, invite each student to show their partner or group members their pictures and explain why they chose certain colors or features. You can use the discussion questions above to guide the partner or group discussions.
Learning Outcome: For some children, drawing may be a more effective way for expressing and processing their emotions rather than verbalization. This activity will help children make connections between their emotions and things they associate with those emotions as well as compare what each of those emotions looks like to them.
Collage Activity: Picture Collage
Instructions: Using old magazines, have your child cut out pictures of things that are important to them (for example, a picture of a family, pet, favorite place). Using our printable children can put together the pictures they chose. Then have a discussion about what they chose and why they chose those pictures.
In the classroom: After creating the collages, each day or week you can feature a student’s collage in the classroom and invite the student to share about it and encourage the rest of the class to ask questions about the pictures the student chose.
Learning Outcome: Having a discussion about our values and why we feel strongly about certain things is an important practice for developing self-awareness. With this activity children can visualize the things that mean the most to them and share with others about why those things are important. Children can also learn others’ values to help them increase empathy and understand and appreciate their diversity in perspectives. We can learn more about each others’ social, cultural, and historical backgrounds through this visualization of our values.
Music Activity: Name the Emotion
Instructions: An adult will play the first 10 seconds of a song or long enough for the first lyric or two to play. The children have to guess what emotion they hear in the song (happy, sad, angry). If there is more than one child you can keep track of who gets it right first and give points. After finding the right answer everyone playing can try singing the song with a different emotion intonation. For example, if it is a sad song try singing it cheerfully!
In the classroom: Try this activity in the classroom by asking your students to close their eyes while the song is playing so they can focus on the music. While their eyes are still closed, you can ask them to raise their hand if they think the song is happy, sad, etc. Students can win points and play individually or you can put them in teams.
Learning Outcome: This game will help children recognize and identify emotions in tone of voice. Once children recognize that tones of voice are associated with emotions they will strengthen their ability to respond appropriately to others’ emotions and emphasize with them. They will learn that happy voices sound differently than angry and sad voices.
Drama Activity: Once Upon a Time I felt happy because…
Instructions: One person starts a story with “once upon a time I felt happy because” and the next person continues the story where the previous person left off with a line or two. The story continues taking turns with everyone participating. To make the activity more challenging and to ensure everyone is paying attention you can require everyone to repeat what the person prior to their turn said. If they are unable to do this the story must start all over again. The activity can be played using various emotions by changing the word “happy” with emotions such as sad, angry, and surprised. If there is space children can also act out the story!
In the classroom: You can try this activity as a whole class, in small groups, or pairs. After each group or pair finishes their story, invite them to share a summary of the story to the class.
Learning Outcome: Creating their own stories will help children draw connections between experiences they have and how those events or experiences can cause us to feel certain emotions. Similarly children will be able to recognize that there is a cause and effect relationship between something that happens and how they feel about it. Additionally, children strengthen relationships skills by learning the importance of communication and active listening skills. Acting out the story rather than just telling it gives children the opportunity to identify self- and social behaviors, developing awareness of themselves and others. When focusing on a specific emotion for each story children can practice the body language and voice intonations associated with the emotion.
Drama Activity: Social Stories
Instructions: Children will act out social stories given to show what they would do in a certain situation. For example:
Yesterday at school your friend said something to you that hurt your feelings. Today, they apologize and want to be your friend again. What would you do?
Your sibling took your favorite toy without asking and accidentally broke it. What would you do?
Children can take turns acting out different ways to handle the situation. Then have a discussion about which ways worked best and which ones did not. More examples of social stories can be found in the Wisdom: The World of Emotions app.
In the classroom: The first time you use social stories in the classroom, it may be helpful to do them together as a whole class. Then you can put your students in groups or pairs to practice social stories and share them with the class after they’ve discussed the different choices they could make in each situation.
Learning Outcome: Similar to acting out the “I felt happy because” stories, children can practice body language and voice intonations when acting out the scenarios. Children will increase empathy for others by having an awareness of the feelings of the other person in the scenario. Acting out these situations will help children understand the perspectives of others and their behavioral reactions to different situations.
We can learn a lot through our expressions of creativity. Whether through visualization or dramatization we can learn more about ourselves and others. Activities in the arts are a fun way for children to not only get creative but to learn about new perspectives and create positive relationships with others.
A prior version of this article was originally published on August 10, 2020.
