Create visual cards that show pictures of emotions on the cards. Draw a picture of someone's face on an index card and write the emotion that it is expressing at the bottom of the card. Show the child the card and talk about the emotion the face is acting out.
Cut out pictures of people from magazines with scissors and look for pictures where people have various expressions on their faces. Ask the child what he thinks each person is feeling and place the pictures of similar feelings in a pile together.
Act out feeling different ways with the child. Show how you feel when you are happy and how you feel when you are sad. Exaggerate the feelings a bit so that the child can really see each expression. Play with dolls or action figures and discuss how the doll or action figure might feel while doing different things.
Request that a child uses his words to tell how he feels. Examples of this are include "Today I feel happy. Sammy how do you feel?" and "Johnny I know you are upset. Use your words to tell me how you feel." This helps to engage the child in a verbal discussion of feelings and shows the child that you expect him to communicate with you how he feels.
Read children's books that talk about feelings and expressing them appropriately. Reading with a child allows the child to learn from the story, ask questions and to process what she learned about words and feelings. Reading the same story several times in the same week gives the child a chance to learn the lessons from the story and remember how to talk about feelings and expressing herself.