Paper-Plate Mask Poses — Read the Body, Not the Face

A guessing game where the face is hidden behind a paper-plate mask, so feelings have to be shown and read through the rest of the body — shoulders, arms, head position, and the way someone moves.

  1. Make a blank mask — a paper plate with two eye holes, held on a stick or simply held up by hand. Leave it plain, with no mouth drawn on.
  2. The adult goes first. Hide your face and show a feeling with your whole body — sad (slumped shoulders, head down, slow shuffle), angry (stiff arms, fists, stomping), scared (shrinking back, arms pulled in), happy (bouncy steps, open arms), proud (tall, chest out, chin up).
  3. The child guesses, and says what gave it away — “your shoulders went down and you walked slowly.”
  4. Lower the mask to check — does the face underneath match?
  5. Swap. The child takes the mask and shows a feeling with their body for you to guess. If you cannot tell, ask them to “turn it up” rather than tell you the answer.
  6. Add movement only rounds — walk across the room as if tired, excited, nervous or bored, and guess from the walk.

Variation: play Statue Stories — one person freezes in a pose and the other invents what just happened (“you dropped your ice cream!”). Or people-watch from a window or a park bench and quietly guess how passers-by feel from how they walk.

Requirements

  • Space: A few meters of clear floor to move across
  • Surface: Any flat, non-slippery floor
  • Materials: A paper plate, scissors (adult use) and optionally a craft stick and tape
  • Participants: 1 adult + 1 child; works well with 3–4 as performers and guessers
  • Supervision: Moderate — the adult cuts the mask and models the first poses

Rationale & Objective

Faces are only part of the message — posture and movement carry emotion too, and in real life the face is often turned away, far off or deliberately neutral. Nelson & Russell (2011) found that preschoolers can already label basic emotions from posture and movement alone, and Boone & Cunningham (1998) showed that sensitivity to specific movement cues (speed, tension, direction, how upright the body is) improves steadily between ages 4 and 8. Hiding the face strips away the easiest clue and directs the child’s attention to those body cues, while performing the poses builds awareness of what their own body is broadcasting — a child who knows that folded arms and a turned back “say” something can start to use and adjust body language on purpose. Reading the whole person is the non-verbal items part of social-skills checklists, and it underpins the social awareness competency in the CASEL framework.

Progress Indicators

  • Early: says “I can’t see your face” and guesses at random; own poses rely on a hidden facial expression with a still body
  • Developing: reads big, clear poses for happy, sad and angry; can copy a pose but needs help inventing one; names one body clue when prompted
  • Proficient: identifies 4–5 feelings from posture or walk alone and says which clue showed it; produces clearly different body poses for each feeling
  • Advanced: reads subtler states (tired, bored, nervous, proud); notices body language in real life or in books (“he’s standing like he’s worried”); can show the same feeling at low and high intensity

Safety Notes

  • An adult should cut the eye holes; make them large so the child can see where they are walking
  • Clear the floor — vision is partly blocked behind a mask
  • Some children find masks unsettling; hold the plate in front of the face rather than strapping it on, or simply turn your back instead
  • Keep angry and scared poses playful and brief, and avoid acting anger at the child; stop if pretend feelings start to tip into real ones
  • Persistent difficulty reading obvious body language alongside other social-communication concerns is worth discussing with a pediatrician or speech-language pathologist

Hints

  • Playfulness: let the child decorate the back of the mask; add a “volume knob” on your arm that the child turns to make your pose bigger or smaller
  • Sustain interest: introduce one new feeling each time (shy, bored, excited, grumpy, proud); freeze-frame a picture book and guess feelings from the characters’ bodies before reading the words
  • Common mistake: sneaking in sounds — sighs, growls, “hmph”. Voice is a different channel; keep these rounds silent so the body does the talking
  • No-equipment adaptation: no plate needed — cover your face with your hands, a cushion or a scarf, or act with your back turned
  • Cross-domain: links to emotional literacy (naming feelings and their causes), to drama and pretend play, and to body awareness as the child learns to control posture and muscle tension
  • Progression: read the adult’s big poses → perform own poses → guess from walking style → subtler feelings and intensities → spot body language in books, films with the sound off, and real life

Sources

  • Nelson, N.L. & Russell, J.A. (2011), “Preschoolers’ use of dynamic facial, bodily, and vocal cues to emotion,” Journal of Experimental Child Psychology
  • Boone, R.T. & Cunningham, J.G. (1998), “Children’s decoding of emotion in expressive body movement: The development of cue attunement,” Developmental Psychology
  • Nowicki, S. & Duke, M.P. (1994), Diagnostic Analysis of Nonverbal Accuracy (DANVA) — Journal of Nonverbal Behavior
  • CASEL framework — Social Awareness
  • Teaching Strategies GOLD Objective 2b — responds to emotional cues
  • UK EYFS — Personal, Social & Emotional Development and Expressive Arts & Design (Being Imaginative and Expressive)