Feelings Photography

Family Feeling Photos

Time Frame: 1 hour + Free Play 

Activity: W.O.N.D.E.R

Area of Learning: Creative Expression, Literacy 

“ Your family is unique. Grab your camera and get ready to move your eyes, nose, mouth, cheeks, and even maybe your ears! How many facial expressions can you make?”

What do we look like when we show our feelings? Using photography, you will capture each family member’s facial expressions as you work your way through a list of feeling words. 

Process

1. Brainstorm feeling words with your child. Add new ones that help build emotional  vocabulary for them (ex: frustrated, nervous, exasperated, etc…)

2. Ask your child to make the facial expression that they would make to match each feeling.

3. Take a photo of those expressions. Do the same for yourself and other family members that are present.

4. Print the pictures off or upload onto your computer where you can see all of the pictures. 

5. Talk about these feelings by asking who, what, when, where , why, how questions. 

*Extension:

You can also match a color to each facial expression (red=angry) and sort the facial expression. 

Materials

• Camera/Phone camera on the selfie mode (mirror effect) 

• Hand held mirror/Mirror (if the selfie mode is not an option)

• Printer/Computer screen 

• Crayons/Coloring device

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Child role

• What sorts of feelings can we feel? 

• What does your face look like when you feel happy? Sad? Angry? Frustrated? Scared? Surprised? 

• Does your face do the same/something different than someone else with the same feeling?

• How do we make others feel a certain way? 

Parent role

• Invite your child to think of different words to describe their feelings. 

• Ask “Can you make your face and body look like you are happy?” etc… 

• Take pictures of each of their expression. Allow them to take pictures of you or other family members.

• Ask, “ What color would you match with the feeling of being sad?” (etc…) 

• Have a gentle conversation of situations where they may have a hard time controlling feelings for themselves or others. What are some ways that could help them calm down?