A few weeks ago I had the privilege of taking my daughters to see Disney/Pixar’s new movie “Inside Out”. In short, “inside Out” is a story about a girl, Riley, and the emotions that shape her into who she is starting from the day she is born. Joy, Sadness, Fear, Anger and Disgust all play a daily role in her life and help form her life long memories.
While most of Riley’s memories are happy, a family move across country takes her away from her friends, her school and her hockey team and sends her emotions into a tailspin. While Joy tries her best to maintain control and keep Riley happy, Sadness, Fear, Anger and Disgust start to take over Riley’s head.
I can’t give away much more than that, you’ll have to see the movie to find out what happens in Riley’s head. I can say that this was a movie that will spark many teachable moments between you and your kids. It was a great opener to talk to my children about emotions and how each one plays a role in who we are and who we become. We talked about how it’s okay to be sad, scared and mad sometimes. Those are all healthy emotions and we shouldn’t be afraid to express them in healthy ways. Without occasional sadness, we would never know what true joy felt like.
I urge you to go see this movie with your kids, it’s a great in to find out what is going on inside their heads!
To help facilitate the conversation I have come up with a “Memory” necklace that the kids can make using the different emotions. Red for anger, green for disgust, blue for sadness, purple for fear and yellow for joy.
Encourage your kids to think about an important memory in their life and pick out a gumball to represent that memory, they can then write the memory on a piece of paper (they can decorate it later to make it more special). Have them do that with 6-8 memories.
After they have selected all their gumballs and written down their memories, they can string their gumballs onto their necklace.
Instructions for “Inside Out” Memory Necklace:
Supplies:
Assorted gumballs in green, blue, yellow, red, green and yellow.
Approx. 10 inches of ribbon (may be more or less depending on the size of necklace your child wants)
Steps:
1. Have an adult use a metal skewer puncture a hole through the center of each gumball until you have a hole in all of the gumballs you are using.
2. Wrap a piece of tape around one end of the ribbon and thread it through the gumball. Continue until all gumballs are threaded.
3. After you have threaded all of the gumballs, measure out the length of the necklace, depending on the child’s preference, and cut the ribbon.
4. Tie the two ends of ribbon together making a bow to form your necklace.
There you have it, the kids have a necklace of their “core” memories and you have no doubt created a joyful memory in the process 🙂
To keep the fun going check out these “Inside Out” activity pages and movie inspired recipes:
Emotions Around the World Printable
Inside Out Emotions Door Hangers (includes hangers for each emotion!)
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