Teaching toddlers about feelings is so important! This toddler feelings learning activity is so easy to set up, nothing special is needed. There is an optional fine motor skills activity as well.
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I love this toddler feelings learning activity. As one mom in my learning play dates group pointed out, it is extremely important to talk about feelings with our toddlers.
As important as talking about feelings and emotions is, whenever they’re throwing tantrums or being wild it can sometimes slip our mind. I’ve been working more and more with my two toddlers on talking about feelings. I think it has helped us a lot!
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⭐ Why you’ll love this activity
This activity is so easy to set up! It is a great way to repurpose toilet paper or paper towel tubes too.
⭐ Why Teaching toddlers to Identify Emotions is Important
According to ThinkPsych, there are five main reasons to help children learn about and identify emotions:
- Solve underlying problems
- Help them feel in control
- Negative emotions lead to negative thoughts
- Helps to form better relationships
- Normalizes feelings and reduces anxiety as well as other health problems
⭐ Supplies needed
For this activity you will need:
- Empty toilet paper tubes
- Black marker or pen (for adults only)
- Construction paper
- Toddler safety scissors
- The book Feelings by Sarah Jenkins (or really, any book about feelings).
⭐ How to do this activity
I chose the book Feelings by Sarah Jenkins but really, any book about feelings will work! We read the book and talked about the different feelings we have and how we can work through them. We also worked on making some different faces such as happy, sad, and shy as well as just some silly faces. The book goes through six different feelings happy, sad, grumpy, excited, scared, and shy.
This toddler feelings learning activity includes a fine motor skill with safety scissors. The toddler safety scissors pictured are by Melissa and Doug and aren’t sharp at all. They are made totally out of plastic and only work on paper which is awesome. They are perfect for toddlers who are learning how to cut. I would recommend using something similar to ensure safety.
To make the toilet paper tubes, draw the faces and then roll a sheet of construction paper in the tube. You can have your toddler trim it to create crazy hair or you can trim it and have your toddler give everyone a new hair cut. This is a great activity to help your child develop fine motor skills.
Not only was this activity super fun but it was also very inexpensive. I already had markers, construction paper, safety scissors, and toilet paper tubes. If you are able to check the book out from your local library that would also be a great option but it wasn’t available at mine so I went through Amazon.
⭐ Activity FAQs
There are so many fun activities you can do to help toddlers learn about feelings. You can do an emotions coloring page, feelings busy binder page, or make faces with toilet paper roll people!
Learning about all of the emotions is the first step in helping toddlers express their feelings. Pretend play is another great way to help learn about feelings.
⭐ Need even more emotions activities?
I have a ton of super fun emotions activities in my Etsy shop! Be sure to check them out.
Melinda Cummings says
Really good idea on how to get your child used to talking about emotions!
Donnya Negera says
This is great! My daughter is turning 3 and is working her way around expressing herself
Kari says
Getting your child used to talking about their feelings is so important! And not to mention the healthy expression of those feelings!
Melissa says
This is a great activity for skills and to help with all of the big emotions happening right now.
Nicole says
What a fun idea! I will have to try this with my four year old.