Feelings Check-In

About this tool

Feelings Check-In turns the morning question every K-3 teacher already asks into a small, warm ritual on the projector. Five weather friends stand on the board — calm, happy, sad, angry and tired — and a child taps the one that fits. Whatever they tap, they hear the same kind reply: thank you for telling us, and this feeling is welcome here. Nothing is ranked, nothing is corrected, and no feeling gets a warmer answer than any other. Sad and angry are met exactly as gladly as happy.

After the reply, a quiet menu offers four things that sometimes help — a drink of water, the quiet corner, three slow breaths, or telling a grown-up. It is an offer, never an instruction: a child can take one or take none, and the board never asks again. That supportive half is deliberately free forever, because a child who has just told you they are angry should not meet a paywall. There are no scores here, no timers, no streaks and no badges — nothing that would turn a feeling into a performance.

The board is built for how classrooms actually handle this: nothing about a child is saved, nothing is ever sent anywhere, and every morning starts fresh, so yesterday’s hard day never follows a child onto the screen. Premium adds check-in by name — children tap their own name from the same roster you already keep in Name Sticks — and a class weather summary for you alone: our class is mostly sunny today, with a little rain. It gives you the room’s temperature in one glance without putting any child on display, and it practises the everyday habit of naming a feeling that most SEL frameworks, CASEL’s among them, treat as the starting point of self-awareness.

How to use it in class

• Open Feelings Check-In on the projector as the class arrives and leave it up through the settling-in minutes.
• Teach the picture once: these are today’s weathers, and every one of them is allowed on our board.
• Let children tap the feeling that fits as they come in — each one hears a short spoken reply and sees what could help.
• Leave the help menu alone. Taking a drink of water or three slow breaths is a child’s choice, not a task you check.
• Premium: pick your class so children tap their name first, then read the class weather line to yourself before you begin.

Classroom ideas

• Arrival routine: run the board every morning for two weeks until checking in is as automatic as hanging up a coat.
• Feelings vocabulary: pair the board with your word wall so calm, angry and tired become words children can say, not just tap.
• Quiet re-check after lunch or after a hard playtime — the board clears nightly, so a second check-in costs nothing.
• Premium class weather: read the summary before your first lesson and adjust the pace, without naming a single child aloud.