Free Social Emotional Learning Worksheets

Social Emotional Learning Worksheet

I offered these free social emotional learning worksheets to my newsletter subscribers last week and I wanted to put it on the website so you could access it to. Here’s the thing: when kids are developing their social emotional learning skills, starting with emotional skills is very important in social development in children.

Kids who have a good baseline understanding of emotions offers a means to better understand emotional growth. Kids can use social emotional activities like this worksheet to better understand emotions, including how they feel at different times, or how their emotions change in different situations.

They can understand social situations and the emotions that others might exhibit with empathy and compassion. Add this social emotional skills worksheet to your friendship activities.

While there are many uses for this emotions worksheet, one way we like to use it is in an emotions check in task. This can be used as part of a curriculum or to support overall self regulation needs by first becoming more aware of emotions, mood and affect.

Social Emotional Learning Worksheet

Free Social Emotional Learning Worksheet

I love this emotions worksheet because it is a starting point for covering social emotional development in kids. It’s a great activity for children who are just beginning to understand emotions and how they respond, or to identify what leads up to a certain emotion.

As therapists, we cover a lot on self-regulation. We talk about what’s happening “below the surface” of behaviors and meltdowns. We discuss underlying factors such as social-emotional skills, and self-awareness.

We address those trigger points by providing self-regulation tools, coping strategies, and mindfulness activities. We help kids and families master an improved quality of life so that completion of daily tasks and everyday occupations are easier and more functional.

This social emotional learning worksheet does just that!

emotions worksheet

To help kids better understand various emotions, they can use this tool to draw and color faces to match the various types of emotions.

They can then write in the given spaces to complete the sentence and identify a time when they felt that emotion.

This is a great tool for helping kids understand emotions, and foster emotional development by offering coping tools or regulation strategies if needed. It’s a great way to help kids talk about emotions and know that it’s ok to feel all of those emotions, and that everyone else does, too.

More emotions activities

This free social emotional learning worksheet makes a nice addition to play-based emotions activities. In the resource, Exploring Books Through Play, you’ll do just that.

This digital, E-BOOK is an amazing resource for anyone helping kids learn about acceptance, empathy, compassion, and friendship. In Exploring Books through Play, you’ll find therapist-approved resources, activities, crafts, projects, and play ideas based on 10 popular children’s books. Each book covered contains activities designed to develop fine motor skills, gross motor skills, sensory exploration, handwriting, and more. Help kids understand complex topics of social/emotional skills, empathy, compassion, and friendship through books and hands-on play.

Click here to get your copy of Exploring Books Through Play.

social emotional activities for kids

I hope this social emotional worksheet is helpful to you and those you serve!

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    Colleen Beck, OTR/L has been an occupational therapist since 2000, working in school-based, hand therapy, outpatient peds, EI, and SNF. Colleen created The OT Toolbox to inspire therapists, teachers, and parents with easy and fun tools to help children thrive. Read her story about going from an OT making $3/hour (after paying for kids’ childcare) to a full-time OT resource creator for millions of readers. Want to collaborate? Send an email to contact@theottoolbox.com.

    Goodnight Moon PDF Printable Memory Game

    Goodnight Moon activity and Goodnight Moon pdf printable

    Goodnight Moon is a classic book by Margaret Wise Brown that teaches so many skills, making it the perfect children’s book to use in therapy activities. We used this book activity and a DIY Goodnight Moon printable PDF memory game. It’s a calming book that inspires sleepy contentment with it’s rhyming text and simple images. The book is a fantastic tools to build visual perceptual skills including figure ground, form constancy, and visual memory. Those skills carryover with our memory game printable you can access below. However, for my own kids, I loved the calming tone that the book offers. It’s a great way to calm down before bed.

    For more calm down activities before bed, try these bedtime relaxation stretches.

    Our Goodnight Moon activity has been played almost as many times as we’ve read the book!  We decided to create a free printable to go along with our memory skills game, so you can play, too.    

    Goodnight Moon activity for kids and Goodnight Moon pdf printable game.
    Goodnight Moon activity with a Memory game inspired by the book, Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown.

    Goodnight Moon Activity…Memory Game!

      Goodnight Moon teaches kids that fear can be caused my our imagination. I loved this explanation of what exactly Goodnight Moon teaches and how this book can be used to help kids build skills.

    This post contains affiliate links.

    Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown is one of those books that we read over and over again.  Each time, the kids will sit mesmerized as I read the quiet rhyming words.  This is definitely a bedtime book that is loved at all times of the day!  When we read through the book, my kids love to look for each item on the pages and find it’s rhyme.  It’s almost like a memory game as you read through the book, especially as the mouse moves around the room in the book.  

    Margaret Wise Brown Book, Goodnight Moon activity for kids.

      To make your Goodnight Moon memory game, grab a couple of pieces of card stock.  We chose brightly colors based on the colors of the book.  Because the setting occurs in a green room, we used green paper for our playing board.  

    You could certainly play this memory game right on a table or floor, but my kids got a kick out of our “green room” and the green paper contained the game for our matches.  

    Goodnight Moon learning Activities

    Make a list of all of the rhyming words as you go through the book.  This is a great preschool book activity, but a powerful visual perception activity for all ages.  Kids can build visual memory skills as they recall each item and the way it looks throughout the book. Some objects change slightly, such as the position of the mouse. So, when kids look for that image on each page, they are building visual discrimination and form constancy. As you read the book, ask them what rhymes with each word.  They can use the book pages as a visual cue to the matching rhyme.    

    Goodnight Moon book activity for kids that builds visual perceptual skills.

    Goodnight Moon PDF 

    Fill in your game pieces with your own drawings (or kid-drawings!) or use our free printable.  You’ll need these three sheets:

    >>Draw your own pictures on the blank picture card printable.

    >>OR, use our picture word card printable.

     >>Printable word cards here. We drew a picture for each rhyme and filled in another card sheet with the written words.  

    Memory game inspired by the book, Goodnight Moon
    Memory game inspired by the book, Goodnight Moon-FREE printable!
    Memory game inspired by the book, Goodnight Moon

      Cut out each block and get ready to play.

    Kids can play this Goodnight Moon activity and work on visual perceptual skills as well as other skills and learning opportunities in Goodnight Moon

      We started with a few matching games.  I placed the written word on our green room paper and had the kids scan the pile of pictures for the matching image.  This is a great way to work on literacy skills as the child matches the picture to a written word, as well as on visual scanning.  Arrange the cards from left to right as a pre-reading skill.    

    Play this Memory Game for kids with the classic preschool book by Margaret Wise Brown.

      We also matched rhyming words.  Arrange a few pictures on the left side of the page and have your child place the rhyming match  to the right.    

      We then arranged the words in a block formation on the green paper.  The kids scanned the pile of pictures and placed the matches together.

    Goodnight Mouse activity for Goodnight Moon book.

      After all of our rhyming games, we played an actual Memory game.  You can also modify the memory game to extend out the activity.  Match word to picture, rhyming pictures, and rhyming words.  This DIY Memory game can be played in so many ways!  

    This is such a fun book activity for kids based on the book, Goodnight Moon
    Memory game inspired by the book, Goodnight Moon

    GoodNight Moon Activities

    First, don’t forget to grab the Goodnight Moon pdf sheets to play this memory game.

    Goodnight Moon inspired memory game blank game pieces.

    Goodnight Moon inspired picture game pieces.

    Goodnight Moon inspired word game pieces.  

    Then, check out these other Goodnight Moon activities. They are great to help kids understand that sometimes scary things are in our minds and that the thoughts we think are not always as scary as things really are.

    Be sure to visit the other bloggers in the Preschool Book Club to see their takes on Goodnight Moon:  

    This I Spy Bottle from Mama Pappa Bubba is another fantastic visual perceptual skills activity and a calming one at that. Check out these sensory bottles and WHY sensory bottles are so calming for kids as well as HOW to make sensory bottles that make an impact.

    This red balloon Art Activity from Buggy and Buddy uses Goodnight Moon’s red balloon with a creative painting activity. Kids can work on fine motor skills and tool use to paint a creative take on the book. Foster scissor use and scissor skills to, meeting therapy goals as well.

    Here are more scissor skills activities kids will love.

    This Goodnight Moon Scavenger Hunt from Frogs and Snails and Puppy Dog Tails is a gross motor activity that builds skills in visual perception and visual scanning. Love this idea to encourage core strength and stability!

    This Goodnight Moon activity with a Lavender Play Dough kit from Homegrown Friends is a calming olfactory activity that adds sensory play and fine motor skills. Kids will love to pair the preschool book with a play dough activity.

    Here is another purple play dough recipe that use crayons. How fun!

    Books to Build Awareness Skills

    Goodnight Moon and the concepts introduced in the book goes well with this resource for parents, teachers, and therapists. It’s a huge collection of 50 activities based on children’s books and it helps to teach children about empathy, acceptance, awareness of others, and friendship. The social emotional development that kids can gain through play based on popular children’s books is amazing!

    Grab the resource, Exploring Books Through Play: 50 Activities based on Books About Friendship, Acceptance, and Empathy, that explores friendship, acceptance, and empathy through popular (and amazing) children’s books!  It’s 50 hands-on activities that use math, fine motor skills, movement, art, crafts, and creativity to support social emotional development.    

    GET THE DIGITAL E-BOOK

    Get the PRINT BOOK

    hands-on activities to explore social emotional development through children's books.