Face-Maker Mirror Studio

The child makes the six basic feeling faces in a mirror, works out which parts of the face do the talking (eyebrows, eyes, mouth, nose), and builds a home-made set of feeling-face cards.

  1. Sit side by side in front of a mirror. Say, “Show me your happy face!” and make yours too. Look together: “What is your mouth doing? What happened to your cheeks and eyes?”
  2. Work through sad, angry, scared, surprised and disgusted (“the yucky-smell face”). For each, name one or two clues out loud — “Angry: eyebrows squeeze down, mouth goes tight.”
  3. Play switch: you make a face without saying the word; the child copies it in the mirror and names it. Then swap.
  4. Take a photo of the child making each face (or let them draw each one on a paper circle). Write the feeling word underneath together.
  5. Finish with a quick shuffle: hold up the photos or drawings one by one and let the child name them.

Variation: cover the bottom half of your face with a sheet of paper and show only your eyes and eyebrows — can the child still tell? Then cover the top half and show only the mouth.

Requirements

  • Space: A spot in front of a mirror — bathroom, hallway or a hand mirror at the table
  • Surface: Any; a table helps for drawing the cards
  • Materials: Mirror; phone camera or paper circles and crayons; a sheet of paper for the half-face variation
  • Participants: 1 adult + 1 child; siblings can join
  • Supervision: Light — adult plays alongside

Rationale & Objective

Naming feelings from faces is the foundation of emotion knowledge, and it develops gradually. Widen & Russell found that preschoolers first sort faces into broad “feels good / feels bad” groups and only slowly add specific labels — typically happy first, then angry and sad, with scared, surprised and disgusted arriving last (the wrinkled-nose “disgust face” is very often called “angry” at this age). Making the faces themselves and talking about the individual features gives children concrete clues to tell the trickier pairs apart. Home-made “Feeling Faces” are a core tool of the Preschool PATHS curriculum, which improved emotion knowledge in a randomized trial with Head Start children (Domitrovich et al., 2007), and CSEFEL recommends mirror play and feeling-face photos for families. The subdomain target of naming 6+ basic emotions from pictures is practised directly.

Progress Indicators

  • Early: reliably makes and names happy and sad; mixes up angry, scared and disgusted; describes faces only as “good” or “not nice”
  • Developing: names 4 basic feelings from your face; can point to one clue (“your mouth is down”); still calls the disgusted face “angry” or the surprised face “scared”
  • Proficient: names all 6 basic feelings from faces and photos; describes two clues for each (eyebrows, mouth); recognises a feeling from the eyes or the mouth alone most of the time
  • Advanced: spots small or mixed expressions (“a little bit worried”); notices the same clues on real people and book characters without prompting; explains the clues to someone else

Safety Notes

  • Use a securely fixed or shatter-resistant mirror; hold hand mirrors yourself if the child is likely to drop them
  • Keep it playful — never ask a child to “make” a sad or scared face while they are actually upset, and never use the cards to quiz a child in the middle of a meltdown
  • Some children dislike being photographed or looking at themselves; drawing the faces or using your face instead works just as well
  • Children with autism or social-communication differences may find face-reading genuinely hard work; keep sessions short and positive, and mention persistent difficulty to your pediatrician or a speech-language therapist
  • Do not correct a child’s real-life expression (“that’s not what sad looks like”) — everyone’s face shows feelings a little differently

Hints

  • Playfulness: exaggerate wildly — the silliest surprised face wins. Add a “face freeze” where you both hold the face for a count of three and try not to laugh
  • Sustain interest: stick the photo cards on the fridge and add a new feeling every week or two (worried, proud, bored, excited). Make a set of the whole family’s faces
  • Common mistake: teaching only happy, sad and angry. The later three — scared, surprised, disgusted — are exactly the ones 5-year-olds still confuse, so give them the most turns
  • Limited space: no mirror needed — use the phone’s selfie camera in the car or a waiting room, or simply face each other and copy
  • Cross-domain: write the feeling words together (early writing); count how many faces have eyebrows going up versus down (sorting, numeracy); draw the faces (fine motor)
  • Progression: happy/sad/angry → add scared, surprised, disgusted → half-face clues (eyes only, mouth only) → small “just a little bit” expressions → photos of unfamiliar people in magazines

Sources

  • Widen, S.C. & Russell, J.A. (2003), “A closer look at preschoolers’ freely produced labels for facial expressions,” Developmental Psychology
  • Widen, S.C. & Russell, J.A. (2010), “The ‘disgust face’ conveys anger to children,” Emotion
  • Domitrovich, Cortes & Greenberg (2007), “Improving young children’s social and emotional competence: A randomized trial of the Preschool PATHS curriculum,” Journal of Primary Prevention
  • Joseph, G.E. & Strain, P.S. (2003), “Enhancing emotional vocabulary in young children,” Young Exceptional Children (CSEFEL)
  • CASEL — Self-Awareness competency (identifying one’s emotions)
  • Head Start ELOF — Goal P-SE 6 (expresses a broad range of emotions and recognizes these emotions in self and others)
  • UK EYFS Development Matters (non-statutory guidance) — Personal, Social & Emotional Development, 3- and 4-year-olds (talk about their feelings using words like ‘happy’, ‘sad’, ‘angry’ or ‘worried’)