What To Do

Take pictures of preschoolers showing a variety of emotions such as happy, sad, angry, frustrated, scared, tired, embarrassed, and surprised. Ask your preschoolers for ideas of other emotions that they have experienced.

Print the pictures and post them on the piece of poster board. Ask preschoolers if they can guess which faces show which emotions. Label each emotion beneath the photographs. Have preschoolers decorate the poster with stickers or other decorations.

Place the poster somewhere that preschoolers can see it throughout the day to remind them that all of their emotions have names and that if they recognize them, they can be in control of their emotions.

Making Emotions Part of Circle Time

You can incorporate your classroom emotions poster into circle time. Preschoolers will love seeing themselves on the poster and will be excited about naming their emotions each day. As part of your circle time routine, ask each preschooler to identify the emotion that they are feeling that day. Giving a name to the emotion that they are feeling will hep them to be in better control of their actions associated with a negative emotion.

Supplies for this Preschool Craft

Hi! I'm Rachel Lister, the Preschool Education writer at PreschoolRock.com. I live in Utah with my husband and two beautiful boys. When my oldest son was born, I quit my teaching job and opened a home daycare and preschool. I love to help preschoolers learn about the world around them. They make life interesting and I can't imagine doing anything different. If you have any ideas, suggestions or comments, feel free to contact me.

Helpful Tips for Parents

• Children's questions are assessment data. The questions a child asks reveal their current conceptual level and what they're ready to learn next.

• Avoid academic pressure before age 5. Preschool children's brains are not developmentally ready for formal academic instruction, and premature pressure backfires.

• Use mathematical language all day: "more than," "less than," "half," "equal," "twice as much." Incidental math vocabulary builds the conceptual foundation formal math builds on.

• Expose children to multiple languages early if possible. The preschool window is the most efficient period for language acquisition the brain will ever have.

• Learning environments matter. A space with accessible books, puzzles, art supplies, and natural materials at child height encourages more learning than a child-proofed empty room.

Frequently Asked Questions

Should my preschooler be reading before kindergarten?

Reading before kindergarten is possible for some children and developmentally not expected of most. The literacy skills that predict reading success — phonological awareness (hearing sounds in words), letter knowledge, print awareness, and vocabulary — are the appropriate focus before age 5. These skills are built through: reading aloud daily, nursery rhymes and songs, alphabet activities, and rich conversation. A preschooler who loves books, knows their letters, and has a large vocabulary is fully reading-ready, whether or not they can decode words independently.

How much learning time should a preschooler have per day?

All of it — because preschoolers learn continuously through every interaction with their environment. The question of "learning time" implies that learning is separate from living, which it isn't at this age. A preschooler who plays freely, has rich conversations, is read to, helps in the kitchen, plays outdoors, and is exposed to music and art is having the richest possible educational experience. Formal, scheduled "learning time" is less productive than a generally enriched daily environment.

Related reading: See also our kindergarten readiness guide and our vocabulary building guide for more ideas on this topic.

🎓 Skills Your Child Will Develop

• 🎯 Self-Directed Learning — Learning that begins with the child's own question or interest produces the deepest understanding — and children who experience self-directed learning develop the intrinsic motivation that sustains learning throughout life.
• 🌐 World Knowledge — Background knowledge about the world dramatically accelerates reading comprehension — children who know more understand more of what they read — making every content-area learning experience a literacy investment.
• 😊 Love of Learning — Positive early learning experiences build a child's identity as a learner — and children who see themselves as curious, capable learners approach school with the engagement and resilience that matter more than any specific skill.
• 🔢 Early Numeracy — Hands-on counting, sorting, measuring, and pattern work develops the number sense and mathematical reasoning that formal arithmetic will later build on — and preschool numeracy is one of the strongest predictors of later math achievement.

What You Need

A digital camera

Poster Board

Markers

Happy Preschoolers

Sad Preschoolers

Angry Preschoolers etc.

Questions to Ask Your Child

Use these open-ended prompts to extend the learning during or after the activity:

• "What was the most interesting thing you learned today?"
• "Can you explain this to a stuffed animal as if they've never heard of it?"
• "What part do you want to practice more?"
• "How is this connected to something you already know?"
• "What would you want to learn more about?"
• "If you were the teacher, what would you tell the class about this?"

There are no right or wrong answers to any of these questions. The goal is to keep the conversation going, model curious thinking, and give your child practice putting their experience into words.