Take a current event such as a recent earthquake, soldiers who are deployed, a homeless problem in your area or another issue, and use it as an opportunity to practice empathy. You can do this by involving your preschooler in an act of kindness. Children can practice empathy by having a discussion about how other people may feel in their situation. For example, you can lead a discussion about how a soldier may miss his family and friends back home while he is away fighting. After the discussion, students can make cards and create care packages for these people to brighten their day.
Read the book "On Monday When it Rained," by Cherryl Kachenmeister, aloud to the class. Have children point out clues as to how the character feels in each picture. After the book, children can create their own feelings book by drawing a picture about something that happened each day of that week and then writing a bit about it. This is an activity that can be done throughout the week on each day of the week.This activity is ideal to support preschoolers to identify how they feel about different things in their lives.
Children can learn about different feelings and how to empathize with other students having those feelings with a feelings portrait. As a teacher, you will want to generate a short list of feeling words such as mad, sad, happy and tired. Have each preschooler illustrate one feeling from the list by drawing self-portraits related to their feeling. Each student can talk about their drawing and what feeling it expresses. Students can then compare and contrast each other's drawings with one another.
Some preschoolers may have trouble understanding different tones of voice. Help your students tune into others' emotions by playing an empathy game. Repeat the same phrase in several different tones of voice and have the class guess what you mean each time. For example, say the words "listen to me" in different tones as if you were mad, happy or were shy. This will help preschoolers to detect the differences in tones. They can repeat the exercise to each other.