Using The Emotion Thermometer In The Classroom

It is important for the development of a child that his or her emotional intelligence is worked on from the first years of life. Both at home and at school, parents and teachers should teach children to recognize, express and understand their emotions and feelings. Fortunately, today there are many useful tools to achieve this goal, such as the emotion thermometer.

Do you want to know how to use this tool and how to apply it in the classroom? In the following paragraphs, we’ll tell you everything you need to know.

The emotion thermometer: an ideal tool to develop emotional intelligence

The emotion thermometer is a very simple and visual educational tool. Even the youngest children can understand the relationship between the temperature indicated by a thermometer and the intensity of their emotions.

To use the thermometer, it must first be divided into different colored boxes. Children can then identify and place their own moods on this scale. They can indicate whether they are very happy, happy, calm, nervous, upset, sad or even angry.

That is why it is an educational and fun tool to work on the emotions in the classroom. This is especially helpful with the following students:

• Kindergarten children
• Children in the lower years of primary education
• Students who have difficulty communicating verbally and expressing their own emotions and recognizing those of others; these are, for example, children on the autism spectrum disorder (ASD).

Using the emotion thermometer in the classroom

The first thing to do to use the emotion thermometer correctly is to place a drawing of a thermometer in a visible place in the classroom. Next, you need to put up some pictures or pictures with different faces. These faces should clearly show the emotional state they are in, states that the children can also experience.

The teacher should then explain to the class that this is a special type of thermometer. The teacher must clearly indicate that this thermometer is not the same as the thermometer used to measure the temperature. Then the teacher can show that it can measure emotions that children may experience at any given time during the school day. How? Very easy. Take a look at these steps:

The steps

• First , at any time , students can ask the teacher for permission to leave their seats and go to the corner of the class where the emotion thermometer is to indicate how they are feeling.
• The child in question must then choose the photo of the face that corresponds to the emotion he or she is feeling. The children can choose between very happy, happy, calm, nervous, upset, sad or angry.
• The student should then stick this face on the thermometer. The high temperatures represent the negative emotions.
• Finally, if possible, the teacher may encourage the student to explain to the rest of the class why he or she feels this way.

The teacher can also use the emotion thermometer himself. In this way, the teacher encourages the children to share their emotions with their classmates.

Benefits of using the emotion thermometer in the classroom

Using an emotion thermometer in the classroom has many benefits because it allows children to:

• Being able to identify and recognize their emotions.
• Think about the cause of their emotions.
• Learn to regulate and control their emotions.
• Learning to understand the emotions of other children.
• Actively listening to the experiences of others.
• Develop empathy.
• Understand that their feelings are varied and will change throughout the day.
• Increase their emotional vocabulary.

In short, with this simple exercise you can improve a child’s interpersonal and intrapersonal intelligence. In this way, as they develop, they can learn the importance of expressing their emotions and understanding the emotions of others. We therefore believe that this is a fundamental factor in helping children to develop well in an integrated manner.