Activities to Promote Self-Awareness

In my previous post, we took a peek at self-awareness and what that might look like with our children and students. To recap, self-awareness helps children grow to understand their feelings, thoughts, actions, and abilities which can positively affect how they see themselves and their relationships with others.

I wanted to take this time to provide a few easy-to-implement activities that can promote self-awareness at home or in the classroom. These are tailored to younger children, so if you are interested in (older) activities, please leave a comment and I would be more than happy to provide some.

**Note: Activities can be played (in pairs) at school or as a family at home.**

Emotions and Situations Matching Game:

• Create pairs and distribute a set of game cards to each pair.
• Game cards should include emotions (sad, happy, scared, worried, etc) and situations (taking a math test, going to the dentist, winning a baseball game, etc).
• Pairs work together to read various situations and match the situation with a corresponding emotion.
• After all pairs have completed the matches, have them share out with the class.

Emotions “Headbands” Card Game:

• Pair students and give each a set of emotions cards (happy, sad, angry, etc.) and a headband.
• Students take turns wearing the headband.
• Their partner must try get them to guess the emotion word displayed on their card by either describing a situation or by acting it out.

Would You Rather:

• Create some “Would You Rather” questions, and use them to spark a discussion.
• For example: “Would you rather visit an amusement park or a zoo?”
• Have students include a “why” when giving their answers.

How Would You Feel:

• Create questions with various situations, and discuss together as a class.
• For example: “How would you feel if you did poorly on a test?”

Compliment Cloud:

• Have students brainstorm ten positive things about themselves, written as “I am” statements.
• Students write those “compliments” down in a cloud shape and display.

One Strength, One Challenge:

• Have students brainstorm one strength they have and one challenge they face.
• Under the strength, students write about how they were able to achieve this.
• Under the challenge, students list the steps they can take to overcome this challenge.

Come back next week for a list of books that can be used to help promote self-awareness. I totally have you covered!