Emotion Perspective Charades

I have to be honest about this emotion perspective charades game.  I wasn’t sure my kids would actually like this activity, but it was something that I felt like was really important to do.  So I put a big smile on my face and did it.  And to my pleasant surprise they actually really enjoyed it!  I think they loved that they got to personalize their perspective line and of course try to stump us with their charades.

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, which means we may receive a commission if you click a link and purchase something. Please check out our disclosure policy for more details.

What You Need for Emotion Perspective Charades:

Paper

Pencils

Numbers 1-10 written on small pieces of paper

How To Play:

First, I want to tell you why I think this activity is so important.  I love the guidance of the Podcast and website, Raising Boys and Girls.  It has been so helpful to me in my parenting.  In their book, Are My Kids On Track?, Sissy Goff and David Thomas talk about different emotional, social and spiritual milestones your kids need to reach. 

One of the emotional milestones is that of perspective.  This is the ability to recognize the difference between something that is annoying like loosing your car keys and something that is life-altering like loosing a family member.  On top of recognizing the difference is the ability to emotionally react in a way that matches the intensity of the situation.

Back to the activity!  The first step is something that I originally got from the book, “Are My Kids On Track?”  In the book they suggest in a time of non-conflict to have your kids make their own personalized perspective chart.  We used the emotion of anger because it is what we seem to need the most work on now.  I drew a line and put numbers 1-10 on the line just like you would make a number line. 

Then we talked about examples of the two extremes 1 and 10 and how each of our lines would look different because we are different people who feel things differently.  So we shared 1 and 10 together and then I let them loose to fill in the rest.  I recommended they start with the ends and work their way in to the middle.  Don’t share what you put for each number with each other yet!

Act it Out

Next take your little pieces of paper with the numbers 1-10 on them.  Have your child pick one number out and then act out the situation they put for that number.  See if you can guess what is happening.  I did a perspective line to so I could go back and forth with my kids acting out different numbers.  At the end we read through our lists from 1 to 10 and talked about how some situations were higher or lower on different people’s scale. 

And now when we have situations where our emotional response doesn’t match the actual events, we can later go back and reference the line we made and see where that situation really does land.  I hope this one will be as helpful to you as it is fun!

Want more fun kid activities?  Subscribe below to get weekly kid activities straight to your inbox! 

Looking for more ways to teach your preschooler at home?  Check out my Preschool Made Easy Program for 30 weeks of home based instruction.

Or check out the posts below for more FREE Four O’Clock Fun Activities.

Let’s stay in touch!!  Click the icons below to follow me on social media.