Introduction

Teaching middle school students about emotions and social skills can be a challenging task. One effective approach is through engaging activities that promote Social-Emotional Learning (SEL). In this blog post, we will introduce you to an exciting game called Emotions Bingo, which helps students recognize different emotions in various situations. The activity is perfect for educators working with middle school students and can be easily incorporated into your curriculum.

No-Prep Activity: Emotions Bingo

Emotions Bingo is an easy-to-implement, no-prep activity that requires no additional materials from the educator. Here’s how it works:

1. Divide students into small groups.
2. Provide each student with a pre-made bingo board featuring various emotions (e.g., happy, sad, angry, calm, etc.).
3. Play a series of short video clips or read aloud scenarios, like the ones mentioned in the prompt, featuring different characters experiencing various emotions.
4. After each clip or scenario, ask students to identify the emotion displayed by the character and mark it on their bingo board.
5. The first student to get four emotions in a row (up, down, across, or diagonal) and call out “bingo” wins the game.
6. Throughout the activity, encourage students to discuss their thoughts and feelings about the situations presented.

Discussion Questions

After playing Emotions Bingo, use these questions to stimulate further discussions among your students:

• How did you feel while trying to identify the emotions in the scenarios? Was it easy or difficult? Why?
• Why is it important to recognize and understand other people’s emotions in our daily interactions?
• Can you think of a situation in which you had to deal with someone who was experiencing a strong emotion? How did you handle it?
• What strategies can we use to better understand and empathize with others’ emotions?
• How can improving our ability to recognize emotions help us build better relationships with our peers?

Related Skills

In addition to recognizing emotions, there are several other related skills that students can benefit from, including:

• Active listening: Paying close attention to what others are saying, and demonstrating understanding through verbal and non-verbal cues.
• Empathy: Putting oneself in another person’s shoes and understanding their emotions and perspectives.
• Conflict resolution: Effectively managing and resolving disagreements and conflicts in a respectful and constructive manner.
• Assertiveness: Expressing one’s thoughts, feelings, and needs in an open, honest, and respectful way.
• Emotion regulation: Managing one’s emotions and responding appropriately in various situations.

Next Steps

Emotions Bingo is just one example of the many engaging activities that can be used to teach valuable SEL skills to middle school students. If you’re interested in exploring more activities and resources, sign up for free samples at Everyday Speech. These sample materials will provide you with a variety of tools and strategies to help your students develop essential social-emotional skills and build strong relationships with their peers.