A craft idea to make links between Emotion Words and Triggers at Christmas time.

Pupils worked in pairs, using yellow and orange card to make 3D cube shapes. On each face they wrote a trigger (yellow cog/card) or an emotion word (orange cog/card). For fun, they were encouraged to decorate the cubes to make them resemble Christmas presents.

Pupils then worked in pairs to roll the “presents” (one each) to reveal an emotion word and a trigger. They took it in turns to create emotional sentences from these. Those who could were encouraged to extend their sentences to include a connective and a little more detail.

For example,

I was disappointed to discover my chocolate money had turned into real money because I prefer chocolate to being rich.

I was excited when it snowed on Christmas Day as I had never seen snow before.

I was surprised to see my snowman come to life since I had been told this only happened in movies.

I was surprised that school was open on Christmas Day but decided I wouldn’t be going anyway!

After 5 minutes, each pupil took one “present” and found a new partner with the other colour of “present” (i.e. those with orange “presents” found a new yellow “present” partner and vice versa.) The game was repeated in this way a few times, generating new emotional sentences from new triggers and new emotion words.

The sentences didn’t always make perfect sense and the emotion word didn’t always match with the trigger but this didn’t matter. Pupils were motivated and engaged in learning. They demonstrated a good understanding of both the yellow and orange cog concepts when creating their “presents” and an ability to use this knowledge to make links between these.

This activity could be adapted to include the green behaviour cog instead or as well.