Sad Feelings Activities

There are many sad feelings activities that can be done with young children, especially preschoolers, to help them recognize, understand, and identify their feelings. These feelings activities include singing songs, reading books, participating in role-playing games, and doing arts and crafts. There are also some sad feelings activities worksheets that you can print out to use while doing some of the activities.

Definition of Sad: Sad can be described as a state of being in which there is an expression of sorrow or unhappiness or feeling mournful or full of grief.

Unfortunately, there are many situations in which children will find themselves feeling sad. Children need to understand that this is a normal feeling that is experienced by children and adults. The feeling of sadness will be felt to different degrees. Some people feel sad for a few minutes, a few hours, a few days, or longer depending on what event has caused the sadness. Children need to be taught to work through their sadness, deal with the pain they are feeling inside, and then find ways to change the sadness into happiness.

Feeling sad can be scary to young children as sadness can sometimes be overwhelming and make children feel like they do not have control. Reassure children that sad feelings do come and they will go, but we have to remind ourselves of things that make us happy and do those activities that make us happy.

Teaching children about sad feelings will help them to learn about empathy, a skill that must be taught by parents and/or caregivers. When children learn to recognize and understand how their own sad feeling affect them, then they are better able to understand how someone else is feeling when that person is experiencing sadness.

Having the ability to empathize means that children will be able to respond with compassion when faced with certain situations. When children are able to show compassion and empathize with others, they will make closer connections with people throughout their lifetime. This is a very valuable skill to teach. There are some great sad feelings activities that will help teach children about sad feelings and empathy.

Color associated with sad feelings: Blue is usually the color we use to represent sadness, but blue is actually considered a calm, soothing color, especially the light shades of blue that represent the ocean and the sky. However, deep shades of blue are associated with sadness, depression, and uncomfortable coldness.

Sad Feelings Activities: Art

1. Use a deep, dark blue to almost black color to draw or paint a picture of something that makes you feel sad.

2. Print out one of the sad feelings worksheets below. Glue it to a piece of cardboard that is the same size as the worksheet. Cut the worksheet into puzzle shapes to create a puzzle. Have the children put the puzzle together, then guess what feeling is being shown in the picture.

3. On a plain piece of white paper, use a white crayon to draw a sad face. Then, using blue watercolor or watered down blue paint, paint over the entire picture with the paint mixure. The white crayon will show through the paint and show the image of the sad face.

4. Turn that frown upside down- Let the children use play-doh to make faces. Show how frown is really a smile that has been turned upside down. Let the children practice changing a sad, frown face to a happy, smiling face. Explain that we can change our sad feelings into happy feelings.

5. Changing Face Cup Puppet

Materials

• Scissors
  
• 2 plastic cups per child
  
• Masking tape
  
• Permanent markers