Social-Emotional Emergent Reader

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A big part of early childhood education is developing social skills and learning to communicate feelings and emotions. It can be tough for young kids to identify how they feel and relate to others, so I love to incorporate engaging resources to identify and discuss our feelings like this free Social-Emotional Easy Reader!

*Pair with our Easy Readers for Early Learners Mega BUNDLE!

Grab this free Social-Emotional Emergent Reader to help your Pre-K and Kindergarten students learn to communicate their feelings and emotions!

Social-Emotional Easy Reader

I find it helpful to read picture books about emotions or feelings before giving my students their own books to read and color. Some of my favorites are The Feelings Book by Todd Parr and The Way I Feel by Janan Cain.

Assembling the reader is a piece of cake. I printed out the book double-sided, made copies as needed, cut it in half, and stapled. One set will make you two books in a flash!

The students will enjoy that the cover says, "Colored by" instead of "Name."

After reading related books about feelings and prepping the easy readers, I gave my kids each their own copy. They loved that the cover says “Colored by ___” instead of name. It made them feel like little illustrators!

At first, we read the book together as a class, looking at the pictures to see if we could identify the feeling based on the facial expressions.

Each page in the emergent reader has a picture of a child with a facial expression matching the emotion in the sentence.

RELATED RESOURCE: Social-Emotional Pocket Chart Activities

Next, I let my kids color their readers and read them with a partner.

This easy reader contains a repetitive pattern of “I feel ___” on each page, making it a great confidence booster for kids as they start to track print and connect meaning to words.

Lastly, we came back together as a group to share how we were currently feeling.

If we have time, I like to extend the activity by picking a page out of the book for my kids to act out. For example, I might say, “Show me how angry might look.” Or, “How might you act if you were scared?

Each page in this social-emotional emergent reader names a different emotion starting with the words, "I feel."

After we finished, I sent the books home with my students to proudly share and read aloud with their families. They love having books that can go home with them to keep!

BONUS Emotions Song!

Songs are powerful AND super fun too! That’s why we want to share with you one of our favorite songs for identifying emotions.

This is a simple song about emotions and is sung to the tune of “If You’re Happy and You Know It.” This song is great for Circle Time and building up social-emotional skills with our students!


Check out the video to hear our emotions song in action. You will definitely want to sing it with your students this year!

⭐️ Verse ideas:

If you’re happy and you know it,
give a smile.
If you’re sad and you know it,

cry a tear.
If you’re mad and you know it,

take a breath.
If you’re surprised and you know it,

give a gasp.
If you’re silly and you know it,

make a face.
If you’re scared and you know it,

give a shriek.
If you’re worried and you know it,

find a friend.

Grab Your FREE Copy

Ready to practice identifying feelings with your kids? Get your free copy of the Social-Emotional Easy Reader by clicking the large, yellow download button at the end of the post!

Want to improve classroom management and increase student engagement with music and movement?

Don’t miss out – sign up today for The PLAYlist! With 3 new songs every month designed specifically for Pre-K, TK, & Kindergarten PLUS corresponding games and activities, this resource is quickly going to become your favorite tool in your teacher toolbox!

Join the PLAYlist and get 3 new songs every month plus corresponding games and activities.

Join The PLAYlist and spend less time trying to capture student attention and more time being engaged in active learning!

Click Here to Download Your Printable
Alex
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Social-Emotional Emergent Reader
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2 Comments

  1. I’m looking forward to using the My Feelings emergent reader with my preschoolers. Thank you for sharing.

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