How to use The Snowman to Work on Emotions – Freebie!

ALLLLLLLL SLPs know the insane value of a wordless book.  Hello, language samples.  So obviously, The Snowman by Raymond Briggs is a winner just for that…but what is also a winner, is the animated film based on the book, that also has NO words.  Hello, language therapy.  Free on YouTube?  You betcha.

I have used this video is a few different ways to work on predicting, inferencing, describing, etc.  It is great for all kinds of language skills.  But this week I used it with my social groups to work on identifying emotions in others…including snowmen.  You know those lessons you plan and they go exactly how you envisioned and everything in life was like chocolate cake?  This was one of those lessons for me.  It.  Was.  Awesome.

I introduced the lesson with a discussion on the six universal emotions:  happy, sad, disgust, anger, fear, and surprise.  I decided to use a dice template since there are six sides (and I can use it in a follow up lesson…#winning).

I gave each of my students a pre-cut die, labeled with the emotions.  We went through each one, I modeled the emotion, we discussed what each word meant, synonyms, and situations that would make us feel that way.  I gave them mirrors and they made the faces themselves, then, together we drew very simple drawings of each one.

Once each face was drawn, we started watching the movie.  In the first 5 minutes you can cover happy, sad, anger, and surprise.  They were so excited to watch this and look for those emotions and they did such a fantastic job!  We had so much fun learning!

A word of advice for using YouTube videos in therapy.  Have the video cued to the right spot, don't have to go through any advertisements.  And make it full screen, so that the ‘related videos' aren't showing.  Sometimes, strange things pop up over there.  Also, at the beginning of The Snowman, the little boy gets dressed and it shows his behind.  Start the video after that, trust me.  They can't handle it.  🙂

I hope this gives you a new and fun idea for using this great video…and if you haven't used the video yet, I really encourage you to!  You can grab a pre-labeled emotion dice HERE.