Personal & social development // Self-Awareness
Naming Your Feelings
Notice what you are feeling and put a name to it — being able to label an emotion is the first step to understanding and managing it
Quick check
When the learner seems upset, excited, or frustrated, can they stop and tell you what emotion they're feeling — even if they can't fully explain why?
Ask this to see whether the topic is secure.
Topic // Mastery
What mastery looks like
- emotional literacy research
- Fostering Emotional Literacy in Young Children (HeadStart.gov)
- emotion vocabulary development 4-11 years (PMC)
Topic // Map
Where this fits
- RequiredMust come first
- HelpfulHelps, but not essential
Before this
2 topics- Vocabulary: selfRequired
Self-Awareness // Ages 5 to 10
Noticing and naming feelings requires the basic vocabulary of self-awareness and reflection
- Feeling of not understandingHelpful
Learning to Learn // Learning to Learn // Ages 6 to 7
Naming what you are feeling is emotional comprehension monitoring — the universal habit of noticing what's happening inside applied to emotional experience
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Naming Your Feelings
Ages 5 to 6 // Thinking skill
Leads to
1 topic- Feelings Versus ActionsRequired
Self-Awareness // Ages 6 to 8
Understanding that feelings and actions are separate requires first being able to name and identify what you are feeling
Personal & social development // Self-Awareness
More in Self-Awareness
- Patterns in Your Own ReactionsAges 7 to 9Thinking skillNotice patterns in your own reactions — 'I tend to respond like this when I'm tired, left out, or put on the spot'
- Your Impact on OthersAges 8 to 9Thinking skillReflect on how your behaviour lands on others — consider not just what you intended but what the actual impact was on the other person
- Questioning First ImpressionsAges 9 to 10Thinking skillNotice when your first reading of a social situation might be wrong — your assumptions about why someone acted a certain way are not always facts
- Personal Growth Over TimeAges 10 to 11Thinking skillReflect on your own growth over time — the things that challenge you now are not fixed, and noticing how you have already changed builds genuine self-knowledge