We’re nearing the end of our Feelings and Emotions activities, and this particular activity took some planning and a bit of driving around. You can adapt it to what’s local to you, but we are lucky to have ocean and forest equally close to us.
Have you ever felt an overwhelming need to be somewhere specific? For example, when I was 42+3 pregnant with Aviya, I felt a desperate need to be at the coast. We lived a couple of hours drive from the ocean at that point and there is an inherent foolishness to being that overdue and going on a trip away, but I knew in my very bones that I needed to put my feet in the early spring sea water before that little bundle of joy was going to join us. It wasn’t the water, the beach or the drive that was going to ready me for labour and birth, though – it was the feeling of introspection and deep calm I always feel on the water – or at the very least on the water’s edge.
There are just places on this planet where certain feelings seem easier to find, and places inside us seem easier to reach.
That is the point of this activity. You might not have the ocean near you or a forest, but hopefully, you’ll have a body of water and a somewhere beautifully natural that you can adjust these too.
You can print this activity from here, or make your own.
Our activity sheet has four leading sentences:
- When I’m sitting on the beach, watching the waves, or ships on the water, with my toes in the sand (or on the pebbles), I feel…
- When I’m quiet in the forest, surrounded by trees and can hear birds, the sighing of trees and wind, I feel…
- When I’m in a busy shopping area, with lots of people, noise, and commotion, I feel…
- When I’m in my bedroom, I feel …
and then a final question:
- Where do you love to be? How does it make you feel?
Depending on the age of the child completing the activity you’ll have more or less to write. The idea isn’t to force them to write, but rather to let them close their eyes, breathe deeply, and see what feelings each environment evokes.
If you can visit all the places on the same day I think that’s best as it makes the difference in feeling clearer, but it doesn’t have to be, especially if the writer is able to express their feelings clearly.
Spend some time at the end of the day, maybe over dinner, discussing the different places visited, and the different feelings and in which situations which places would make the best destinations.
For more feelings and emotions activities, click on the image below: 
