I joined a lucky draw conducted by Miracule and won a book ‘Today I am’. It contains a series of drawings of fish displaying various emotions.
I showed it to El and he started reading the adjectives and acting them out. When the words were positive, such as ‘happy’ and ‘glad’, he smiled brightly. When he saw the word ‘scared’, he opened his eyes wide, covered his mouth and dropped his jaw.
He had some trouble with pronouncing and understanding the word ‘jealous’ and understood it after I talked about Gar. He said he was not jealous of his brother.
I asked him what he was feeling today. He flipped through the pages and said, “Today I am loving.” I made him give me a hug to show he was loving. Then I suggested to him to show he was loving by hugging Gar.
Immediately, he ran into the room, but seemed hesitant to climb over the fence. He finally went in and gave a hug to Gar who was seated and playing with the flash cards. Gar was unused to this show of affection, so he promptly burst into tears.
Later on, I told my husband what had happened while El was around. He listened and said that he was loving but Gar did not know how to be loving.
This book with beautiful drawings is good to learn about emotions, but perhaps they could have a more advanced version with a more extensive vocabulary, with words such as ‘ecstatic’, ‘petrified’ and ‘worried’. They could include phrases too.
