Social-emotional learning (SEL) is gaining traction as an important part of early childhood development. Taking the time to teach your little ones about concepts like big feelings, self-regulation, and kindness will go a long way in creating the kind of positive classroom community you envision. So get them off to a good start by jumping into our fantastic list of 64 engaging social-emotional activities for preschoolers!
1. Emotions Discovery Bottles
This set of bottles is modeled after the popular movie Inside Out, but your kids don’t need to know the movie to benefit from this activity! Just have them pick out ingredients and decorate the bottles with faces that represent different emotions. They’ll start talking about their feelings in no time!
Learn More: Laly Mom
2. Feelings Check-in Chart
A simple feelings chart is a great social-emotional tool that you can use throughout your day. You can use a pre-made chart like this one or make your own one. You can hang it in your classroom and when your preschoolers have big feelings, show them pictures to help them identify their emotions.
Learn More: Pre-K Pages
3. Stomping Out Big Feelings with Dinosaurs
Little ones are often enamored with dinosaurs and yours will love stomping out their dinosaur-size feelings with these cute figurines! They just name a big feeling, pick out a dinosaur, and use it to stomp out their feelings in this fun social-emotional activity that helps them express emotions.
Learn More: The OT Toolbox
4. Setting Up A Calming Corner
Everyone needs a break sometimes and calming corners are perfect for when your preschoolers need some quiet time. Set up a peaceful area and share ideas about how they can use the calming items and activities in your space to regulate their emotions and calm down.
Learn More: The Montessori-Minded Mom
5. Make A Set Of Worry Dolls
Your young learners are a lot like adults in that some of them probably tend to worry more than others. Having playful objects like Worry Dolls can be helpful for talking about anxiety in a kid-friendly way. For an added literacy connection, pair this one with the story, Silly Billy, by Anthony Brown!
Learn More: Happy Hooligans
6. Making Emo Dolls
Using cardboard tubes, your kiddos can help make these cute emo dolls that show different emotions. These are great for role-playing different scenarios and will help them identify their own feelings and develop empathy for the feelings of others.
Learn More: Danya Banya
7. People Play-Doh Mats
Any activity that uses Play-Doh is sure to be a hit with your little learners. They’ll love creating a figure of themselves using Play-Doh and then adding facial expressions to show their unique feelings and to learn about the emotions of others!
Learn More: Picklebums
8. Make Emotions Masks From Paper Plates
Making emotion masks from paper plates is a fun hands-on activity that can help your children develop their understanding of different emotions. Since many of them are still in need of emotional vocabulary, this is a no-pressure, informal, and fun way to introduce it!
Learn More: No Time For Flashcards
9. Talk About Emotions During Morning Circle
Circle time is a great opportunity to talk about the date, weather, and your schedule for the day. Since this is probably already part of your routine, it’s an easy way to integrate some social-emotional learning through music, games, and activities that are sure to get your kiddos talking about their feelings!
Learn More: No Time For Flashcards
10. Calming Sensory Bins
Sensory bins are a great social-emotional tool for your preschoolers that provide sensory feedback which can have a calming effect on young kids. This is a great center activity or the perfect tool for your calming corner that they can use when feeling overwhelmed by big emotions.
Learn More: 25 Unique Sensory Bin Ideas for Kids
11. Storytelling Social Stories
Social stories are tales that will help your little ones understand the rules and expectations of your classroom community. They’ll love learning about making friends, helping others, and being kind through fun and engaging read-aloud stories.
Learn More: How We Learn
12. A Sticky Cutting Tray Of Emotions
Cutting trays are a super tool that will appeal to your preschoolers because they’re an unrestricted space where they can cut and create! Add a social-emotional aspect to your trays by giving them magazines with close-ups of faces to cut out and reconstruct.
Learn More: Picklebums
13. Feeling Matching Game
Playing a matching game with feeling cards puts a social-emotional spin on the classic and well-loved game of memory! Your students will benefit from the visual support provided with clear pictures of feelings and will love playing this game with a partner or in a small group!
Learn More: Kiddie Matters
14. Emotions Guessing Game
It’s showtime! Give one of your kiddos an emotion card to place on their forehead and remind them not to peek! Have your other children act out that emotion for the student to guess. Get ready to hear some giggles as they act out feelings and develop social-emotional skills!
Learn More: Emotions Guessing Game
15. Emotions Sorting Mats
Sorting activities are a wonderful way for your kiddies to develop their understanding of different feelings. These sorting mats are perfect for them to notice and understand how different feelings can be expressed in a variety of ways.
Learn More: File Folder Heaven
16. Play “Catch” A Feeling
All you need for this versatile and fun activity is an inflatable beach ball and a dry-erase marker! When your little ones catch the ball, they’ll name the feeling their hand lands on, or they can show your class the face that best describes how they’re feeling at the moment!
Learn More: 25 Bouncy Indoor and Outdoor Beach Ball Games for Kids!
17. Social-Emotional Board Game
Your preschoolers will love playing this social-emotional board game! Use the game’s spaces to write questions about times when they felt certain emotions or about the things they can do to calm themselves. This is a great small group activity that will provide you with important information about your students!
Learn More: Kristina Marcelli
18. Emoji Feelings Faces
Emojis are an internet trend that is probably here to stay, so why not tap into this digital wonder to help your little techies understand their feelings? These cute little faces are great social-emotional learning tools and will help them understand the different ways we can express our emotions to others!
Learn More: Kiddie Matters
19. Happy And Sad Face Sorting
This is a great hands-on activity that is perfect for your kiddos Keep this one simple by focusing on just two emotions and cut out pictures from magazines or newspapers that show these feelings. Then, have your students sort the pictures into two pockets or bags, and discuss their choices!
Learn More: Having Fun At Home
20. Paper Plate Feelings Spinner
Your little artists will love creating their own paper plate feelings spinner. Have them start by creating faces or colors that represent different emotions. Attach a spinner to the plate and let them take a whirl! When they land on a feeling, they’ll show you how they express that emotion!
Learn More: Meaningful Mama
21. Color By Code – Emotions
Coloring emotions by code is a fun activity that will help your preschoolers develop fine motor skills, practice their colors, and learn about feelings! You can use these simple and easy-to-use worksheets to get them to match colors to faces that show that feeling. This is perfect for when they might need a little downtime.
Learn More: Frogs And Fairies
22. Scribble Art
Developing self-awareness is a key component of social-emotional learning. All you need is paper and some color crayons, colored pencils, or markers. When your littles are feeling a big feeling, get them to scribble it out to help them identify, name, and express their emotions.
Learn More: The Art Of Education
23. Mega Block Feelings
What preschooler doesn’t love playing with blocks? Making Mega Block feelings is an extremely simple activity to set up where your kiddos will mix and match facial features to create emotional expressions. Use this in a center activity or kick things off by using it in your morning meeting!
Learn More: Twitchettes
24. Story Stones
This hands-on activity is perfect for your students who need to keep their hands busy! Let them use acrylic paints or markers to paint different expressive facial features on rocks or stones. Give them a variety of stones so they can make their own faces and then have them share their creations with the class!
Learn More: Where Imagination Grows
25. Create A Flipbook
Your preschoolers might have a difficult time telling you how they are feeling, but this visual support will help them articulate these emotions. Create this cool flipbook with the words and matching faces of some core emotions and then have them point to how they are feeling!
Learn More: The Mad House Mummy
26. Make A Thumbs Up, Thumbs Down Jar
This fun activity will help your kiddies develop a sense of social awareness! Write different scenarios on slips of paper that show examples of positive and negative actions or behaviors. Choose a slip, read it out loud, and have one of your students put it in the thumbs-up or thumbs-down jar!
Learn More: Things To Share And Remember
27. Make A Self-portrait
Mirrors are great for helping your little ones understand their own facial expressions! They’ll start off by looking in a little mirror to show an emotion and then they’ll draw a portrait of themselves in a book that shows this expression. This one is perfect for helping them develop self-awareness as well as their artistic expression!
Learn More: Still Playing School
28. Fishing For Feelings
Reel in some social-emotional learning with this hands-on activity! You’ll need a mini fishing rod with a magnet on the end of the casting line for your students to catch pictures that show different feelings! This is a great movement activity that can be played independently, in pairs, or in a group.
Learn More: Little Page Turners
29. Feelings Hop
This is another activity that is excellent for getting your preschoolers up and moving! Print and laminate large pictures of faces showing different emotions and let them take turns hopping their way to identifying feelings. Gross motor activities like this one are perfect to use for developing social-emotional skills.
Learn More: Kiddie Matters
30. A Jar Full Of Feelings
A jar is perfect for helping your kiddos visualize self-regulation. Use a marker to write an emotion on a jar and the numbers 1-5 to show different levels. When they feel this emotion, they’ll add colored pom poms to the jar to show how much of this feeling they’re experiencing.
Learn More: Mosswood Connections
31. Feelings Slap Game
How many different emotions can your preschoolers identify? Find out with this next fun idea! Just call out an emotion and they’ll delight in trying to slap the card that shows that emotion as quickly as possible!
Learn More: Kiddie Matters
32. Rainbow Breathing
For this activity, print or make a picture of a rainbow to give each of your kids. Show them how to trace one arc of the rainbow with their finger while breathing slowly and deeply. Continue to do this for each color to help them improve focus and self-control, and to promote mindfulness in the classroom.
Learn More: The OT Toolbox
33. I Can Show Kindness
This simple worksheet will help your children understand how they can show kindness with everyday actions. Review each of the pictures that show kind actions and then have them keep track of the things they do in your classroom that show kindness!
Learn More: Teachers Pay Teachers
34. The Gratitude Game
Games are a great way to reinforce social-emotional skills and this one is perfect for also helping your kiddos with their fine motor skills. Just use colored sticks, candies, or crayons and have them choose a color and match it to a gratitude action to practice showing appreciation!
Learn More: Seattle’s Child
35. Practice Social Interaction
This is another great social story activity that helps your little ones work through specific scenarios that might occur in your classroom. These cards are great starting points to talk with them about things like sharing, being kind, and how to invite someone to play!
Learn More: Whimsy Workshop Teaching
36. Boss Your Body Impulse Control
We all know that it can take a while for kids to grasp how to stop and think before acting out or blurting out. This activity is super for helping your young ones regulate their emotions and impulses by learning to understand and control the signals their body is giving them!
Learn More: Boss Your Body Impulse Control
37. Good Friend
Little learners need concrete examples to help them understand the difference between positive actions or behaviors and negative ones. This is especially true when it comes to friendships! Your kiddies will sort and paste different pictures that show what it means to be a good or bad friend.
Learn More: Keeping My Kiddo Busy
38. Heart-Shaped Spatial Awareness Puzzle
Show a little love with this spatial awareness activity that could also be used for social-emotional learning. This would be a great project to do after a lesson on what it means to show kindness in your classroom. After your instruction, you could have your kids fill this heart with objects found in nature.
Learn More: Little Pine Learners
39. Reading Body Language
These simple cards include pictures of characters showing emotions in different scenarios. Your preschoolers will love having to decide if the cute image accurately depicts the emotion on the card. This is an excellent activity to help them connect emotions to body language!
Learn More: Annie’s Classroom
40. Calming Kit
A kit like this one is a great tool to use in your calming space to help your kiddos calm down when they are upset. The kit has everything they need to build calming skills from a chart that shows different emotions to manipulatives like squishy balls that they can use for self-regulation.
Learn More: Perfection Pending
41. Learn Through Literacy
Teach your children about the concept of sharing through the read-aloud, The Doorbell Rang. They’ll love this story and it’s the perfect way to introduce them to the basics of social awareness and responsible decision-making and it has the added bonus of teaching social-emotional learning and math skills!
Learn More: Pre-K Pages
42. Identify Body Feelings
This is an excellent activity that’ll help your preschoolers not only identify emotions but also understand how their unique bodies express these feelings. They’ll choose images that show specific sensations and place these over a picture of a body to become more conscious of how they physically react to emotions.
Learn More: The Responsive Counselor
43. Alphabreathes: The ABCs Of Mindful Breathing
Mindful breathing is a great calming tool to instill early in your little ones and this book is also great for reinforcing alphabet knowledge. They’ll love following along as these adorable characters make their way through the ABCs while learning how to slow down and simply breathe!
Learn More: Mindful Schools
44. Puppet Play
You can’t beat the power of puppets! This is a simple way to soften up classroom conflicts. Whether it’s two besties not getting along or one of your kiddies coming into school feeling blue, puppets help. Role-playing using the puppets will often make it easier to work things out!
Learn More: Raising Children
45. Build A Flower Emotions
This adorable activity will grow your students’ awareness of different emotions! They’ll love matching the different expressions of animals to the correct emotion that a flower petal shows. Watch as their social-emotional skills really start to bloom with this one!
Learn More: Frogs And Fairies
46. Kind El Ninja Cards
“Yo soy generoso!” For your bilingual kiddies, the Kind El Ninja cards are an excellent way to teach kindness and empathy during your morning circle. You can use the structured game or improvise with your own cards. Either way, they’ll start using self-affirmations in both English and Spanish before you know it!
Learn More: Instagram
47. Floating Emotions
Teach your little learners how emotions settle down with time. Just have them give the pretty wand a shake and watch as the glitter slowly floats to the bottom of the tube. Don’t have a glitter wand in your teacher’s toolbox? A snow globe will work just fine!
Learn More: Mindful
48. Daily Goal
Goal setting isn’t just for big kids and grown-ups. Take a moment to set a goal for the day with your preschoolers! Whether it’s showing kindness on the playground, or sharing and turn-taking during station activities, they’ll be proud of their work at the end of the day!
Learn More: Pam Barnhill
49. Use Your Words
It’s hard for your littles to feel all those big feelings when they’re having trouble speaking up or finding their words. In times of stress, they’ll sometimes need reminders to take a few breaths and “Use your words”. This gentle prompt can be both comforting and encouraging.
Learn More: PBS Kids
50. Sunshine And Cloud
This is a great social-emotional activity that uses weather to get your children talking about feelings. When they feel overwhelmed, they’ll love the simplicity of showing you a sun for smiles or a cloud for frowns! They’ll be sharing their positive and negative emotions with ease in the safe space you’ve created!
Learn More: Rainbow Days
51. A Mixed Bag Of Feelings
This basket of mixed-emotion plushies is a perfect addition to your quiet corner when feelings are running high. Your kiddos will love the calming activity of sorting through the different emotions as you help them name their feelings!
Learn More: Kimochis
52. Feelings Charades
This game will get your preschoolers up and moving and they’ll love taking center stage! As they act out being happy, sad, shy, tired, or silly, their classmates will have loads of fun trying to guess the feeling. Good thing there are a lot of emotions because everyone will want a turn!
Learn More: Kids Club Childcare
53. Musical Feelings Game
Start with laminated picture cards of different emotions and place them in a circle on the floor or on chairs. Have your kiddies hop or move from card to card while the music plays. When it stops, they’ll need to describe or act out the feeling word. Whoever guesses, wins!
Learn More: Discovery Building Sets
54. Pom-Pom and Skewer “Jenga”
Turn-taking is an essential social skill and this fun game is sure to give your little ones some healthy practice! Just fill a colander with pom pom balls and thread pipe cleaners across the holes to hold them in. Have them pull one out while trying not to let the balls drop. Fun!
Learn More: Lovevery
55. Turn-Taking Bowling
Another turn-taking game is bowling because it allows for “think time” and patience while your kiddos set up the pins. Make sure to model language and let them practice saying, “Now it’s your turn” and “Now it’s my turn.” They’ll get the hang of it quickly!
Learn More: Lovevery
56. Mood-O-Meter
For this hands-on activity, just pick some emotions and make a felt square for each feeling. Then, have a basket of pictures backed with velcro that shows your children’s facial expressions for each emotion. They’ll feel empowered to show their friends how they’re feeling. Use this any time for a quick check-in!
Learn More: CLCFC
57. Be Kind Book & Picture Activity
This book by Pat Zietlow Miller and Jen Hill is an excellent social-emotional addition to your classroom library and it makes a great read-aloud! After your preschoolers have heard the story, follow up by having them draw or cut pictures from magazines that illustrate kindness.
Learn More: Macmillan
58. Kindness Superhero Of The Day!
Do you assign jobs like a line leader or teacher’s helper? Why not add another job for your little learners – the kindness superhero? Make this role special by providing them with a cape and you’ll be surprised at all the wonderful examples of kindness that they notice and report to the class!
Learn More: Minds In Bloom
59. Band-Aid Fix-It
Band-aids aren’t just for cuts and scrapes but can be for emotional boo-boos as well! Keep a drawer full of fun ones with cartoons and cute designs that your kiddos can wear as a badge of honor when they’ve overcome hurt feelings.
Learn More: Brooke-Randolph
60. Zones Of Regulation
‘Zones of Regulation’ is a popular, research-based approach to teaching your kiddos a common language about the wide range of feelings they might experience. This one is often rolled out school-wide, with your younger kiddies having simple color-coded posters to help them understand how to manage and regulate emotions.
Learn More: Zones Of Regulation
61. Positive Affirmations
If you have a kiddo who’s feeling down, it can be super uplifting for them to practice a little self-love. Just pull out the hand mirror and give them some words and phrases to say to themselves. Some ideas? I am brave! I am learning! I am kind!
Learn More: Prodigy
62. Diversity Activities
Your littles will love this egg activity because they love anything ooey-gooey! Create a feeling of togetherness in your beautifully diverse classroom by showing them that even though the eggs might look different on the outside, they are both the same on the inside!
Learn More: Pinterest
63. Mirrors Game
Have your preschoolers practice eye contact with this fun game! Give them a choice of three emotions: happy, sad, and silly. They’ll take turns acting out the emotion while their friend tries to guess it. To win, they must also look each other in the eyes while they play. Just wait for all the giggles!
Learn More: Center for Child and Family Studies – UC Davis
64. Pass The Smile/Nod/Wink
This is another cooperative game that lets your kiddos practice their social skills in a fun way! They’ll go around the circle giving the person next to them a smile, a nod, or a wink. It’s a great way for them to practice friendly nonverbal greetings!
Learn More: Early Impact
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