An emotion identification worksheet is a structured activity that helps a student name an emotion and connect the label with clues such as context, body sensations, and intensity. The free grades 6–8 worksheet below also asks students to choose one helpful next step. It takes 20–25 minutes and requires only a printed copy and pencils, or a projected copy and notebook paper.
Use it on this page or print it without entering an email. The optional Emotion Identification Starter Pack is available through an email form and adds four worksheets, a five-day log, a facilitator guide, and a one-page counselor/administrator brief.
On this page: The worksheet · Safety and privacy · The starter pack · The research · Advisory vs. core classes · Beyond a worksheet · FAQ
The free worksheet: Name It, Find It, Rate It
Grade band: 6–8 · Time: 20–25 minutes · Materials: printed worksheet and pencils, or a projected copy plus notebook paper; optional scrap paper for the warm-up. No student devices. · Format: whole class, then individual or pairs.
Prints the worksheet only (the optional private section prints as its own sheet). No email needed.
How to run it
- Warm-up (3 min). Ask students to list as many emotion words as they can in 60 seconds. Say, “Keep your list. At the end, add any useful words you learned today.”
- Teach the eight (5 min). Walk through the reference table, one line per emotion. Say plainly: the eight are a starting set, the related words matter as much as the core word, and two emotions at once is normal.
- Model one scenario (4 min). Think aloud through Scenario A: which emotion fits and what clue points to it, what body cues someone might notice, how strong, what to do next. The model response is printed below the scenarios.
- Students work Scenarios B and C (6 min). Individually or in pairs. More than one emotion per scenario is allowed.
- Optional private practice (3 min). Students may complete Part 3 on its own sheet. They keep it. It is not collected or shared.
- Close (2 min). Ask for volunteers: “What is one word from today you could use this week instead of fine or mad?”
Name It, Find It, Rate It — emotion identification worksheet
Emotions are signals. Name the signal, find the clues, rate how strong it is, and choose one next step. Use the eight words below; if a different word fits better, write your own.
Part 1 — Eight starting emotions
| Emotion | What it usually signals | Related words, often milder → stronger |
|---|---|---|
| Joy | Something good is here. | content, glad → happy → thrilled |
| Trust | I expect this person or situation to be reliable. | comfortable → trusting → secure |
| Fear | Something might go wrong or be dangerous. | uneasy, nervous → afraid → terrified |
| Surprise | Something I did not expect just happened. | caught off guard → surprised → amazed, shocked |
| Sadness | I lost something that mattered, or things did not turn out how I hoped. | down, disappointed → sad → heartbroken |
| Disgust | A smell, taste, sight, or behavior feels strongly unpleasant or violates a boundary. | uncomfortable, put off → disgusted → repulsed |
| Anger | Something is blocking me or feels unfair. | annoyed, irritated → angry → furious |
| Anticipation | Something is coming and I am preparing for it. | curious → expectant → eager |
Remember: Related words are not exact synonyms. Body cues and feelings are clues, not proof. Describe disgust toward a sensation or behavior; never label a person, identity, culture, food tradition, or body as disgusting.
Body-cue word bank: tight chest · hot face · stomach knot · clenched jaw or fists · shaky hands · heavy or tired · restless legs · lump in throat · fast heartbeat · light, energized
Next-step word bank: breathe slowly · pause before responding, if I can · say what I need · ask a question · move or stretch · write it down · ask an adult for help · enjoy it and notice it
Part 2 — Practice scenarios. For each scenario, answer four prompts:
- Which emotion or emotions fit? Point to a clue in the scenario.
- What body cues might someone notice? Choose from the word bank or write “not sure.”
- How strong might the emotion feel? 1 (barely there) to 5 (as strong as it gets).
- What is one helpful next step?
If a scenario feels too close to something in your own life, you may use a character from a book or show, choose another fictional school situation, or skip it without explaining why.
Scenario A. You get a group project back. The grade is lower than you expected, and the comment says one section was missing — the section your partner was supposed to do.
Emotion(s): Clue from the scenario: Possible body cue(s), or “not sure”: Intensity, 1–5: Helpful next step:
Scenario B. Tryouts are today after school. You have practiced for two weeks. Walking toward the gym, your stomach is tight and you keep checking the time.
Emotion(s): Clue from the scenario: Possible body cue(s), or “not sure”: Intensity, 1–5: Helpful next step:
Scenario C. A friend who usually walks with you to lunch has started sitting with a different group. Today they did not wave when you passed.
Emotion(s): Clue from the scenario: Possible body cue(s), or “not sure”: Intensity, 1–5: Helpful next step:
Model response for Scenario A: Anger and some sadness. The missing section and unexpected grade are clues. Someone might notice a hot face or tight jaw. About a 4 out of 5. Helpful next step: take time before responding, then ask the teacher whether the missing section can still be turned in and talk with my partner calmly.
Part 3 — Optional private practice (print or copy this part as its own sheet, or have students tear it off — it is never turned in)
Choose an ordinary, low-stakes moment from this week, use a fictional or character-based example, or skip this part. Do not write names or details you would not want on paper. This sheet is yours; do not turn it in or share it.
Emotion(s): What led up to it, if you want to write this: Possible body cue(s), or “not sure”: Intensity, 1–5: Helpful next step:
Modifications for language, reading, or executive-function needs
- Shrink the list first. Start with four emotions (joy, sadness, anger, fear), then add the other four in a second session.
- Let students circle instead of write. The word banks work as circling lists; accept a circled cue and a number as a complete answer.
- Read the scenarios aloud, or let students use text-to-speech. Invite students still building English vocabulary to write each emotion word in their home language beside it.
- Give sentence starters and chunk the page. “I notice ___ in my ___.” “This is about a ___ out of 5.” Hand out Scenario A alone, then B, for students who shut down when a page looks long.
- Allow partner talk before writing. The skill is naming the feeling, not producing a paragraph alone.
Facilitator note
Treat the table as a reference, not a one-answer quiz. More than one label may be reasonable when a student can point to a clue in the scenario. Allow mixed emotions. If time is short, cut one scenario rather than the next-step prompt.
Safety and privacy boundaries
Use these pages for emotion-vocabulary practice, not screening, diagnosis, treatment, or referral scoring. Do not collect, grade, display, or ask students to read personal responses aloud. Parts 1 and 2 may be checked only when Part 3 is on a separate sheet. Keep the material low-stakes and school-based: do not ask students to label or reframe trauma, grief, unsafe situations, discrimination, or barriers to access.
If a student voluntarily shares something that raises a safety concern, follow your school’s referral or safeguarding process. Do not use the worksheet to investigate the disclosure or question the student in front of peers.
Download the Emotion Identification Starter Pack (PDF)
The email-gated pack includes the on-page worksheet in a clean print layout plus:
- Emotion Vocabulary Builder: Sort 24 related words under the eight starting emotions and compare their intensity.
- Where Do I Feel It?: Mark possible body cues for two or three emotions. The directions remind students that cues are clues, not proof of a particular emotion.
- Emotion Intensity Scale: Describe what a student might notice at levels 1–5 and identify a helpful response at each level.
- Scenario → Emotion → Next Step: Use six fictional school scenarios and a two-person role-play to practice naming an emotion and responding helpfully.
- Five-Day Emotions Log: Use personal, fictional, or character-based examples. The log is optional, private, and never collected or scored.
- Facilitator guide: Follow a two- to five-session sequence with differentiation and privacy boundaries.
- Counselor/administrator brief: Review the purpose, research limits, no-cost pilot, and possible next steps on one page — built to be forwarded.
Everything is paper-based and requires no student login.
Get the free Emotion Identification Starter Pack
The form asks for an adult email address. Do not enter student information.
For a broader survey, our roundup of social-emotional learning worksheets covers worksheet types across all five CASEL competencies; this page is the dedicated emotion-identification resource with a complete activity and printable pack. Our collection of social-emotional learning activities includes discussion and group formats that can accompany the fictional scenario cards.
What is an emotion identification worksheet?
In classroom resource listings, this may also be called a feelings worksheet or an identifying emotions worksheet. For middle school, a useful feelings worksheet offers age-respectful vocabulary, treats body sensations as clues rather than answers, allows mixed emotions, includes an intensity rating, and asks for a helpful next step. Personal reflection should be optional and private.
Why emotion identification matters in grades 6–8
CASEL lists identifying one’s emotions as one skill within self-awareness. It defines self-awareness as “the abilities to understand one’s own emotions, thoughts, and values and how they influence behavior across contexts” and includes “identifying one’s emotions” among its example capacities (CASEL). The research below offers a rationale for practicing the skill; it does not establish outcomes from this worksheet.
Emotion differentiation changes across development. Nook et al. (2018) studied 143 participants spanning childhood through young adulthood. Negative-emotion differentiation — how distinctly participants reported their emotional experiences — declined into adolescence and rose again in young adulthood, with the estimated low point in mid-adolescence. The study did not measure emotion vocabulary or test worksheets.
Greater differentiation is associated with regulation-related measures. Kashdan, Barrett, and McKnight (2015) reviewed research connecting more differentiated negative-emotion reports with several measures of regulation and mental health. Much of that evidence came from adults and was correlational. It does not show that teaching emotion labels, or completing this worksheet, causes better regulation or clinical outcomes.
Affect labeling changes adults’ responses to emotional images in laboratory tasks. In a brain-imaging study of 30 adults, labeling the emotion shown in a face was associated with lower amygdala activity and greater right ventrolateral prefrontal activity than matching emotional faces (Lieberman et al., 2007). The study did not measure a middle-school student’s own emotion intensity or classroom behavior.
Torre and Lieberman’s 2018 review describes affect labeling as a form of implicit emotion regulation and summarizes laboratory evidence that labeling can affect some subjective and physiological responses. The mechanisms and classroom relevance remain uncertain. Siegel and Bryson’s The Whole-Brain Child (2011) uses the practitioner phrase “name it to tame it,” but the book should be cited for that phrasing, not as evidence of worksheet outcomes.
None of these cited sources tested this worksheet or a grades 6–8 classroom lesson. Use them as a rationale for skill practice, not as a promise of results.
A note on the “8 basic emotions”
There is no scientifically settled set of eight basic emotions. This worksheet uses Robert Plutchik’s eight — joy, trust, fear, surprise, sadness, disgust, anger, and anticipation — as a vocabulary scaffold. Plutchik arranged them in four opposing pairs: joy–sadness, trust–disgust, fear–anger, and surprise–anticipation (Plutchik, 2001; summarized in Semeraro et al., 2021, a secondary source).
Other researchers use different models. Ekman (1992) argued for basic emotion families with universal features. Barrett (2006) questioned whether familiar categories such as anger and fear are natural kinds with fixed biological essences. Willcox’s 1982 Feeling Wheel begins with a small group of broad feelings and expands into more specific terms.
These models serve different purposes; none establishes that eight is the correct number for every classroom. This worksheet uses eight to keep the starting list manageable, while allowing students to write a more precise word.
Using the worksheets in advisory vs. core classes
In advisory or homeroom, teach the full worksheet once, then reuse one component at a time. A later session might use the vocabulary builder, a fictional scenario, or the intensity scale. Offer personal reflection only as an optional private alternative; do not collect it.
In a core class, connect the prompts to the immediate task or to fictional material. Before a test, lab, or presentation, students can privately name and rate a feeling without reporting it aloud. English teachers can apply the prompts to a character: “Which emotion fits? What clue in the text supports it?” Science or health teachers can discuss body cues while emphasizing that the same sensation can have several causes.
Use consistent reference terms across settings when practical, while allowing students to choose a more precise word. Consistency reduces avoidable confusion; it does not require every student or adult to use only eight labels.
Beyond a worksheet: how a sequenced curriculum builds the skill
A stand-alone worksheet can introduce and practice the skill. It does not provide a grade-to-grade sequence or a shared instructional plan.
Although CASEL lists identifying emotions under self-awareness, Ori Learning teaches and applies the skill within the Self-Management unit of its five-unit Emotional Well-Being Curriculum for grades 6–12. Emotion-identification instruction appears in grades 6 and 7 and returns in grades 9 and 10. Grades 8, 11, and 12 do not have a dedicated emotion-identification lesson.
The grade 6 lesson “Managing Emotions” opens with a mood check-in and teaches students, in the lesson’s own words, “what causes emotions, how to use the feelings in your body to help identify them, and how emotions can be helpful to understanding what you need.” Students match emotions to the message each one sends, complete a body-cue checklist for a scenario, and name a recent emotion along with its bodily feeling and cause.
The grade 7 lesson “How I Really Feel” moves to complex emotions, including jealousy as a combination of worry, anger, and fear. The following lesson introduces the four-step R.A.I.N. framework. Grades 9 and 10 revisit emotion identification.
Every lesson includes an ungraded pre- and post-check, a vocabulary term with its definition, and a closing journal prompt. The platform also includes built-in text-to-speech and translation. Those tools may support access for some learners; the other modifications above still require teacher choices.
To see the grade sequence, explore the Emotional Well-Being Curriculum or request a curriculum walkthrough.
Building classroom routines around mindset too? See our growth mindset activities for middle school.
Frequently asked questions
What is an emotion identification worksheet?
An emotion identification worksheet is a structured activity that helps a student name an emotion and connect that label with context, possible body cues, and intensity. Some versions also ask for a helpful next step. Resource listings may call it a feelings worksheet or an identifying emotions worksheet.
Are the “8 basic emotions” scientifically established?
No. The eight (joy, trust, fear, surprise, sadness, disgust, anger, anticipation) come from Robert Plutchik’s model and are widely used for teaching, but researchers disagree about how many basic emotions there are, or whether emotions are a fixed set of categories at all. Use the eight as a starting vocabulary and say so to students.
How long does the worksheet take, and what grades is it for?
About 20 to 25 minutes, one class period or advisory block, for grades 6–8. The scenarios are written for 11- to 14-year-olds; for grade 9, swap in older scenarios.
Should I collect or grade the worksheets?
Parts 1 and 2 may be checked for completion only when the optional personal section is on a separate sheet. Do not collect, grade, display, or ask students to read the personal section aloud.
What if a student writes something that worries me?
Follow your school’s referral or safeguarding process. Do not use the worksheet to investigate the concern or question the student in front of peers. The activity is vocabulary practice, not screening or counseling.
Can I use this in a general-education social-emotional learning (SEL) block?
Yes. CASEL lists identifying one’s emotions as one skill within self-awareness, so the worksheet can fit an SEL curriculum or advisory program that follows that framework.
References
- Barrett, L. F. (2006). Are emotions natural kinds? Perspectives on Psychological Science, 1(1), 28–58. Full text (author’s lab)
- CASEL. What is the CASEL framework? casel.org
- Ekman, P. (1992). An argument for basic emotions. Cognition & Emotion, 6(3–4), 169–200. Publisher
- Kashdan, T. B., Barrett, L. F., & McKnight, P. E. (2015). Unpacking emotion differentiation: Transforming unpleasant experience by perceiving distinctions in negativity. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 24(1), 10–16. Full text (author’s lab)
- Lieberman, M. D., Eisenberger, N. I., Crockett, M. J., Tom, S. M., Pfeifer, J. H., & Way, B. M. (2007). Putting feelings into words: Affect labeling disrupts amygdala activity in response to affective stimuli. Psychological Science, 18(5), 421–428. Publisher
- Nook, E. C., Sasse, S. F., Lambert, H. K., McLaughlin, K. A., & Somerville, L. H. (2018). The nonlinear development of emotion differentiation: Granular emotional experience is low in adolescence. Psychological Science, 29(8), 1346–1357. PMC (open access)
- Plutchik, R. (2001). The nature of emotions. American Scientist, 89(4), 344–350. Model summarized in the secondary source Semeraro et al. (2021), PMC.
- Siegel, D. J., & Bryson, T. P. (2011). The Whole-Brain Child. Bantam. Author’s site
- Torre, J. B., & Lieberman, M. D. (2018). Putting feelings into words: Affect labeling as implicit emotion regulation. Emotion Review, 10(2), 116–124. Publisher
- Willcox, G. (1982). The Feeling Wheel: A tool for expanding awareness of emotions and increasing spontaneity and intimacy. Transactional Analysis Journal, 12(4), 274–276. Publisher
About this resource
This resource was prepared by the Ori Learning Curriculum Team, which develops and maintains the Emotional Well-Being and Transition curricula and the classroom resources on this blog.
Worksheets adapted from a retired Ori Learning curriculum library; they are not excerpts from the current Emotional Well-Being Curriculum. These are educational classroom activities, not diagnosis, screening, or treatment, and they do not replace school counseling or clinical support.
Start with the free printable pack
If your school needs a sequenced grades 6–12 approach rather than a stand-alone activity, explore the Emotional Well-Being Curriculum or request a walkthrough.
Get the Free Emotion Identification Starter Pack
Printable worksheets for grades 6–8 — the on-page worksheet in print layout, a vocabulary builder, body map, intensity scale, scenario cards with a role-play, a five-day log, a facilitator guide, and a one-page brief for your counselor or administrator.
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