ECD 533
Feelings and Self-Concept
Large Group Guidance Unit
Dana Comer
North Carolina State University
Dec. 02, 2014
Description of Unit:
Setting: Elementary School- Third grade
Number of Lessons and Timeframe: 5 lessons, 2x per month or every other week; 20-40 minutes per lesson
Goals of Unit: Students will increase his/her understanding about feelings, what they are, how they work, and
how they may cope with certain feelings, and also increase their knowledge of self-concept and ways to obtain
the skills to improve self-concept.
Rationale: Brechet, Baldy and Picard (2009) found a clear-cut gap between children being able to label and
depict simple emotions such as happiness and sadness and more complex emotions like anger, fear, and disgust.
Children age’s six to eleven were unable to correctly give emotional labels based on detailed scenarios in a
labeling task. The same outcome was true with children’s ability to depict basic emotions from a human
drawing (Brechet, Baldy & Picard, 2009). Emphasis needs to be placed on not only basic emotions, but
complex feelings also. Self-concept allows students to hold a belief about themselves and is impacted by the
way they handle responses from others, thus linking to their feelings. Because feelings are at the core of selfconcept, pairing the two would be beneficial.
Utilizes ASCA Standards for Students: Academic Domain- A:A1, A:A2; Personal/Social Domain- PS:A1,
PS:A2, PS:B1, PS:C1
Outline of Lessons:
Lesson 1: My Many Moods Wheel- Students will learn how to identify different emotions/feelings
Lesson 2: Fruit Feelings Family- Students will personify emotions using fruit and act out scenarios for the
emotions, how emotions are recognized, and how to identify with a general emotion, etc.
Lesson 3: What’s Worrying You- See below demonstrated lesson
Lesson 4: Kindness Bingo- Students will learn the feeling of caring for others and learn to do acts of kindness
through playing bingo
Lesson 5: My Good Points- Students will learn to identify 5 good, positive, self-affirmations about him/herself
Demonstrated Lesson: Lesson 3- What’s Worrying You?
Goals:
(1) Students will learn about the feeling of being worried [PS:A1.5, PS:B1.11]
(2) Students will put into words what they are worried about [PS:B1.1, PS:B1.3, PS:B1.4, PS:C1.10]
(3) The student will come up with ideas of happy things they can replace the worry with to fill their brain, also
known as personal strengths [PS:B1.3, PS:B1.4, PS:C1.11]
Materials Needed: Worry doll template (any plain person figure), markers/crayons/colored pencils, scissors,
personal skills strength ball (optional), Wilma Jean the Worry Machine by Julia Cook
Delivery:
 Start off with the explanation of what a worry is. A worry is a thought that stops you from feeling good.
It will stay with you as long as you let it.

Read the book: Wilma Jean the Worry Machine by Julia Cook
ECD 533
Feelings and Self-Concept
Large Group Guidance Unit
Dana Comer
North Carolina State University
Dec. 02, 2014

After reading the book, discuss ways for how students pinpoint worries. For example, asking the
question “How do you know if you have a worry?” Does your heart beat faster or do your hands start to
sweat? Maybe you get a stomach ache.

Discuss how to get rid of a worry.

Activity: Introduce how to get rid of a worry by putting what is bothering you into words using the
worry dolls. Sharing worries helps us to feel better.
 Tale of children in Guatemala: Guatemalan children tell one worry to each doll when
they go to bed at night. They place the dolls under their pillow and in the morning the
dolls have taken their worries away!

After the children have each given a worry to their doll(s), wrap up the lesson by having the students tell
each doll something great that you want to accomplish or something great you have done. (If a student
is having trouble telling their worry doll something, you may use the Personal Skills Strength ball to
help them out.) If the worries try to find their way back into your brain, remind the brain that you have a
new happy thought in its place.

Closure: Reiterate that a worry is a feeling that stops you from feeling good. It can creep up on you or
happen quickly. We can get rid of a worry by doing simple things like giving the worry away. Ask
students: What was it like to learn about worrying? Did you learn something new? Maybe you have
had a worry before, but didn’t know that’s what it was? Does anyone have any questions?