Feelings in English: Emotions Vocabulary for Kids

Practice on screen

Look at the picture or number and choose the right English word. Ten questions each round.

How to teach it

1. 1. Feelings faces

   Draw faces on paper plates, or make them with a marker on your hands. Hold up one face and ask, "How does he feel?" The child answers, "He is sad." Then the child makes faces and you guess. Show the face with the body too.

2. 2. Act it out

   Whisper a feeling to the child, who shows it with the face and body without a word: slumped shoulders for tired, a big jump for excited. You guess in a full sentence: "You are tired." Then change roles.

3. 3. Feelings check-in

   At a regular time of day, such as before dinner or at the start of a lesson, ask, "How are you today?" Put a set of feelings cards on the table and let the child point to one and say the sentence. Daily repetition makes the words natural.

4. 4. Story pictures

   Look at a picture book with expressive faces and stop on a page. Ask, "How does the bear feel? Why?" The child answers in one word first ("Sad"), then you model the full sentence: "He is sad because he lost his ball."

5. 5. Feelings weather report

   Make a simple chart with the days of the week. Each day the child draws or sticks a face to show how they feel and says one sentence: "On Monday I am happy." At the end of the week, look back at the chart together.

6. 6. Match feeling to situation

   Say a short situation and let the child choose the right feeling card: "It is your birthday." "You lose your toy." "You hear a loud noise." This teaches words together with the moments in which they are used.

Common mistakes

• Saying "I have hunger" or "I have thirst"

  In English we use the verb to be with feelings and body states: "I am hungry," "I am thirsty," "I am tired." Wrong: "I have hunger." Wrong: "I have fear." Right: "I am scared."

• Mixing up bored and boring

  Bored describes how a person feels: "I am bored." Boring describes the thing or person that causes the feeling: "The movie is boring." Wrong: "I am boring" when you mean you feel bored. The same is true for excited and exciting.

• Saying "I am much happy"

  To make a feeling stronger, use very: "I am very happy." Much is not used before an adjective in this way. Wrong: "I am much happy." Right: "I am very happy" or "I am so happy."

• Using the wrong small word after angry and scared

  People are angry with someone or about something, and scared of something: "I am scared of dogs." Wrong: "I am scared from dogs." Right: "I am scared of dogs." Learn the pair as one phrase.

• Answering "How are you?" with "How are you?"

  To the question How are you? answer with a feeling and then ask back: "I am fine, thank you. And you?" Wrong answer: repeating "How are you?" as the whole reply. Practice both parts together.