Lesson details
- Objective: Students rate the intensity of an emotion on a 1–5 scale and name one thing that changes the number.
- Time: 15 minutes
- Grade band: K–2
- CASEL competency: Self-awareness
Materials
- A large drawn thermometer with zones 1–5
- Sticky notes or clothespins, one per student
Steps
- Show the thermometer. Explain the zones: 1 is calm and comfortable, 5 is the biggest a feeling gets.
- Model with a real example: "When I spilled my coffee this morning, my frustration was a 2. When my alarm didn't go off, it was a 4."
- Name a scenario (losing a game at recess, a surprise substitute, a birthday). Students place their sticky note where their feeling would be.
- Point out — without naming students — that the same event landed on different numbers.
- Close: ask students to show with fingers where they are right now, 1 to 5.
Debrief questions
- Why might the same thing feel like a 2 for one person and a 4 for another?
- What is one thing that helps your number come down?
Variations
- Keep the thermometer posted and use it as a two-second check-in before transitions for the rest of the term.
- For grade 2, add the question "what number is too big to solve a problem at?" — most classes land on 4.
What mastery looks like
- Rates a named situation 1–5 and can say why it is not one higher or lower
- Explains how the same event can honestly be a 2 for one person and a 4 for another
- Names one thing that helps their own number come down
What tends to go wrong
The goal is intensity language, not accuracy policing. A student who rates everything 5 is telling you something real; follow up privately, not during the lesson.