Speaking Activities › Emotion Acting
Emotion charades — a feelings game for the classroom
One child sees the feeling. Nobody else does. They act it out silently for about five seconds, and the class works out what it was. It takes a minute to explain, it needs nothing but a screen, and it is the quickest way to move a class from happy, sad, angry to smug, sheepish, overwhelmed — because they have to look closely at a real face to name it.
What is emotion charades?
Emotion charades is a guessing game in which one person acts out a feeling using only their face and body, with no words or sounds, while everyone else names it. It is charades narrowed to one category, and that narrowing is what makes it useful: every guess is a feeling word, so the whole class spends the activity reaching for more precise vocabulary.
How do you run it, step by step?
Show the feeling to one child only — on the board it stays blurred until you tap it, so you can turn the screen or call them over. They act it silently for about five seconds while everyone watches. Take guesses, then reveal. Whoever got it right goes next, which keeps it moving without you having to pick. Six or seven rounds is a full starter.
Why is there no timer?
Because the acting is not the activity — the guessing is. Five seconds is a rule of thumb to stop a child performing for a minute, not something to run a clock on, and a countdown here would rush the part that matters. That is why this is the one activity in the set with no turn length to choose.
How do you pick feelings at the right level?
This is most of the job, so the ready-made sets are graded rather than themed: easy to spot for Year 1 and 2, everyday feelings for lower Key Stage 2, trickier ones for upper Key Stage 2, and big dramatic ones for anyone who enjoys performing. Pick the set above where your class is comfortable — the stretch is the point, and a word they cannot yet name is exactly the one worth acting.
From the classroom
Two things ruin this, and both are fixable in ten seconds. The first is the feelings display on your wall: children will point at it, or read the guesses off it, and the vocabulary work stops dead. Turn them away from it or take it down for five minutes. The second is that the fastest guesser wins every round and the same child ends up acting six times — so change the rule to "hands up, I choose", and choose someone who has not been up yet. What makes it genuinely worth the lesson time is refusing to accept a bare guess. Ask what did you see? and you get "her shoulders went up and she wouldn't look at us" — which is inference, evidence and vocabulary in one sentence, and it is the same skill they need for reading a character in a book. With a class that includes children who find faces hard to read, act the first one yourself and narrate what you are doing; it takes the guesswork out of the guessing.
What usually goes wrong?
Children mouth the word, make a noise, or act so big it becomes a joke and the class stops reading the face. Say those three rules before the first turn rather than after someone breaks one. The other common problem is a set of words that are too close together — furious and annoyed in the same round is a guessing lottery, not a vocabulary lesson.
Which year groups is it for?
It works from Reception to Year 9 (US grades K–8), which is unusual for one activity, and it is entirely down to the word list. Four-year-olds can act happy and cross. Year 6 can act sheepish and argue about whether it was that or guilty — and that argument is the best part of the lesson.
Can I use feelings from our class book?
Yes, and it is the strongest way to use it. Type your book, or a moment in it, and you get feelings drawn from that context at your class's level — so the game becomes revision of how a character felt and when. It works the same way for a topic: starting a new school, winning and losing, a scary story.
Can I print it?
Yes — two sheets. The feeling cards are cut-outs so groups can play at tables with the cards face down. The guessing sheet has two columns: what I saw, and so I think they felt… — which is what turns a guess into a reason, and gives you something written down at the end.
| Use it for | How | How long |
|---|---|---|
| A quick starter | Six rounds, first correct guess goes next | 5 minutes |
| Building emotion vocabulary | Trickier set, and ask for a reason every time | 20 minutes |
| Class book work | Generate feelings from your novel, then find the moment | 25 minutes |
| PSHE or wellbeing | Everyday feelings, print the guessing sheet | 20 minutes |
Do I need an account?
No. The setup screen and the worked example are both open, so you can see what you would be running before anyone asks you for anything. Starting the activity uses a free trial token, and a Sage Pro subscription lifts the limit.
Free to try, and no sign-up to look around.
More like this
For writing about how a character feels, try Emotion Graph or the printable emotion vocabulary cards. For more drama, Speak Like… puts them in role out loud. All seventeen are in Speaking Activities.
Written by a practising primary school teacher, who built Sage Teachers to use in their own classroom. Every activity here is free to try with no sign-up.