Emotion Thumball

Emotion Thumball

The Emotion Thumball is a small, soft 4" ball that is easy to catch and has character traits and emotions printed on hexagons over all. Throw the ball to someone. After he catches it, ask him to lift his thumb and read what is on the hexagon where his thumb was. It is called an "emotion" thumb ball, but not everything on it is an emotion. Kind and thoughtful are more character traits than emotions. I have used this ball for a number of activities and the kids have been open to it. Words on the ball include disappointed, jealous, defeated, tired, worried, stressed, curious, thankful, hurt, relieved, silly, brave, generous, sorry, and lonely. There are also cartoonish figures on the white pentagons that include frustrated, surprised, unhappy, excited, tearful, angry, frightened, confused, and cheerful.

Try this:

• Have the person act out the emotion and try to guess the emotion by reading his facial expression, coupled with context and body language.
• Type a list of the emotions on paper to aid in helping the guesser interpret.
• Ask "What might this person say?" or "How might this person act?"
• Use the ball to model emotions and their associated facial expressions and body language.
• Catch the ball and lift your thumb. Read the emotion and state "A person who is worried may look like this. He might say..."
• Work on facial expressions and/or body language only, without speech. Talk about how the mouth, eyes, eyebrows, arms, posture and such would look.   

Work on visual perceptual skills, manual dexterity, social skills, reading facial expressions

 

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