Lesson Plan (Grades K-2): Emotion Emoji Diaries: Building Emotional Vocabulary through Storytelling

Lesson Title: Emotion Emoji Diaries: Building Emotional Vocabulary through Storytelling

Grade Level: Grades K–2

Subject Area: Language Arts & Social-Emotional Learning

Overview Emotions are fundamental to understanding ourselves and others. In this lesson, students will listen to and discuss a short, illustrated story and pause at preselected “emotion points.” At each pause, pairs will choose or draw an emoji representing how the character feels—happy, sad, angry, surprised, or scared—and record their choice in an “Emotion Emoji Diary.” They will then compose or dictate one sentence explaining their selection, using age-appropriate emotion vocabulary. Over several sessions, this practice develops students’ ability to recognize, label, and empathize with emotions, strengthens early writing and speaking skills, and fosters collaborative reflection. By integrating literature with social-emotional learning and simple engineering of diary pages, K–2 teachers gain a comprehensive, hands-on approach to build critical vocabulary and empathy.

Objectives and Standards

Learning Objectives By the end of this lesson, students will be able to:

1. Identify & Label Basic Emotions: Accurately match story events to emotion labels—happy, sad, angry, surprised, scared—and select or draw corresponding emojis.
2. Compose Emotion Sentences: Use simple sentence frames to express why the character feels a certain way (e.g., “I chose 😢 because the puppy lost its ball.”).
3. Demonstrate Empathy: Discuss how characters’ feelings relate to their own experiences, fostering perspective-taking.
4. Collaborate & Reflect: Work in pairs to complete diary entries, share choices, and reflect on emotional vocabulary and story comprehension.

Standards Alignment

• Common Core State Standards (CCSS) for English Language Arts
  • CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.K.1: With prompting and support, ask and answer questions about key details in a text.
  • CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.K.3: With prompting and support, identify characters, settings, and major events in a story.
  • CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.K.2: Use a combination of drawing, dictating, and writing to compose informative/explanatory texts in which they name the topic and supply some information.
  • CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.K.4: Describe familiar people, places, things, and events with prompting and support, providing additional detail.
• Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) Competencies
  • Self-Awareness: Recognize and label one’s own emotions and those of others.
  • Social Awareness: Demonstrate empathy and respect for diverse perspectives.
  • Responsible Decision-Making: Reflect on emotional causes and effects to make supportive choices.