Feelings Word Search
- CURIOUS
- SCARED
- ANXIOUS
- ANGRY
- NERVOUS
- SILLY
- TIRED
- UPSET
- SAD
- THRILLED
- JEALOUS
- HAPPY
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Your word search
Feelings Word Search, Answer Key
- CURIOUS
- SCARED
- ANXIOUS
- ANGRY
- NERVOUS
- SILLY
- TIRED
- UPSET
- SAD
- THRILLED
- JEALOUS
- HAPPY
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Or take one that is already made
Four sheets, each with a different job. Every one is a two-page PDF, the puzzle, then the answer key on its own page.
Feelings word search, large print11 × 11 · 7 words · EasyDownload PDF ↓
Feelings word search, everyday14 × 14 · 11 words · MediumDownload PDF ↓
Feelings word search, more words15 × 15 · 14 words · MediumDownload PDF ↓
Feelings word search, challenge17 × 17 · 15 words · HardDownload PDF ↓Every sheet here is free to print as often as you like. If one saved you time, the tip jar is on Ko-fi.
Emotional vocabulary is taught deliberately in most elementary classrooms, because a child who can name a feeling can talk about it. This list goes past happy and sad into the words that do the real work: frustrated, nervous, grateful.
The natural follow-up is to ask for a time they felt one of the words they found. The puzzle is the easy part; the conversation afterwards is the point.
Each step up keeps a handful of feelings a child has just met. CALM, the last word on the large-print sheet, opens the everyday one. JOYFUL, GRUMPY, LONELY, CHEERFUL and WORRIED carry on to the more-words sheet, and its last eight, BORED to EAGER, start the challenge sheet, where ANXIOUS, FRUSTRATED and THRILLED are new. A word met once on a smaller grid is easier to talk about the second time it turns up.
Seven feelings on the list, SHEEPISH, RELIEVED, UPSET, ASTONISHED, CARING, IRRITATED and OPTIMISTIC, are on none of the four ready-made sheets, so the maker on this page is the way to put any of them into a grid.
Which feelings words are the same feeling at different strengths
Several of the forty feelings are one emotion at different strengths, and the list holds enough of them to build three scales: IRRITATED, GRUMPY, ANGRY and FRUSTRATED for being mad; WORRIED, NERVOUS, ANXIOUS and SCARED for being afraid; and CONTENT, CHEERFUL, HAPPY and THRILLED for feeling good. Asking a child to put four of them in order from small to big is a good use of a finished sheet, because there is no single right answer and the reasons they give are the real lesson. A child who can say they were IRRITATED rather than ANGRY has described a smaller problem, and smaller problems are easier to solve.
Thirteen of the forty end in ed, from SCARED, EXCITED and TIRED to ASTONISHED and IRRITATED, and the ending makes a useful hook, because each one points back at a cause. Something scared you, something surprised you, something bored you, so the follow-up question writes itself. Five more end in ful (JOYFUL, CHEERFUL, GRATEFUL, HOPEFUL and PEACEFUL), and every one of them has a single L, a rule worth stating before the sheet goes out, since full with two is the spelling children already know. CURIOUS, NERVOUS, JEALOUS and ANXIOUS share an ous ending that sounds like us.
How to use the feelings sheets in a calm corner
For a calm corner or a small support group, start with the large-print feelings sheet: its seven words are HAPPY, SAD, ANGRY, SCARED, EXCITED, TIRED and CALM, the feelings a young child usually has words for already, and the grid runs across and down only, so finding them takes little effort and leaves attention free for talking. The everyday sheet moves on to the quieter feelings, SHY, PROUD, BRAVE and LONELY, which are easy to feel and harder to say out loud. Keep the conversation to one word at a time; a sheet with eleven feelings on it does not need eleven discussions.
The challenge sheet is the one for older children, and it carries several of the feelings that are hardest to own up to: JEALOUS, ANXIOUS, FRUSTRATED, BORED and CONFUSED, alongside GRATEFUL, HOPEFUL and PEACEFUL. CONTENT is on it too, and it is worth saying aloud, because the same spelling makes two words: with the stress at the end it means satisfied, and with the stress at the front it means what is inside something. A child who reads it the second way will be puzzled to find it on a feelings list, which turns into a small and memorable lesson in how stress changes meaning.
Common questions
Is this for emotional literacy work?
It can be, and the value is in the range: the large-print sheet keeps to broad feelings such as HAPPY, SAD and ANGRY, while the challenge sheet asks for FRUSTRATED, ANXIOUS and JEALOUS, more precise words for a child who has only ever had those three.
Which words are worth stopping on?
EAGER, GLOOMY and AMUSED, all on the challenge sheet, because each is easy to read and harder to explain. Asking a child to act one out once it is circled turns the sheet into something other than a search, and SHEEPISH and ASTONISHED, on no ready-made sheet, are good ones to add with the maker.
Are there any upsetting words on the feelings word search?
No: the forty stay with everyday feelings, and the strongest are LONELY, JEALOUS, ANXIOUS, FRUSTRATED and GLOOMY, with nothing about grief, illness or danger. The large-print sheet goes no further than SAD, ANGRY and SCARED, so it is the gentle one to start with.
Want to know when new printables go up?
New printables when they go up, mostly seasonal, a few times a year.