One of my greatest tools in working with children is a chart that simply has faces on it expressing different feelings. These faces include a range of feelings from feeling happy, sad, joy, calm. angry, embarrassed etc. Children just love choosing one to talk about how they feel on that day. This is a wonderful way of engaging with them easily, as often younger children have difficulty expressing their feelings.

I have other more sophisticated charts to express feelings but all our students choose the simpler, easy to translate chart. Parents may find such a chart a great tool at home in inviting children to talk about their emotions. It is visible, clearly understood and gives parents an easy access to the child's emotions. These charts can be obtained in some news agencies or can be drawn up at home and laminated. One again this is a visible, easy to understand way of expressing feelings.