If you currently have, or have ever had a toddler, you know that their feelings and emotions can be bigger than what they know how to handle. Feeling new things can be scary to them when they don't know what they are or how to manage them. We are working on recognizing what we're feeling and calling it what it is. ;)

This sort focuses on four general, and fairly common emotions: excited, happy, sad, and mad. I wanted to get Kade used to seeing these different facial expressions, recognizing them, naming them, and categorizing them. I used three different types of clip art (puppy dogs, popsicles, and sunshines) to show each of the four different emotions, and then created a larger sorting mat for each.

You can use this printable however you'd like, but I decided to use it as a game for our fridge. I taped the mats up onto the fridge and used little magnetic circle stickers on the backs of each little character card. This way, we can leave it out for awhile without it getting in the way and Kade sees it whenever he walks into the kitchen which often entices him to play. He hasn't mastered this quite yet as we are still working on looking at the facial expressions on each card and finding the matching mat, however, he is recognizing and naming the emotions and I love hearing him use the vocabulary!

Along with this printable, I also created one that has all four of the emotions on one mat with columns for the little cards to be sorted under. Every kiddo is different, but for Kade, I felt like the big separate mats would be less confusing and more clear as to where each character should go. If your kiddo is a little older (preschool age), then you may be able to get away with the single page sorting mat. You could have your child simply lay the cards in the correct column or you could use Velcro to attach each card (I always love the idea of throwing it in a file folder for easy storage, too)! We typically laminate our activities so they last longer but this is not necessary.

You can download the free printable we used for this activity by clicking the image below! :)