The Way I Feel by Janan Cain - Teaching Ideas

The Way I Feel is a fabulous book for exploring feelings. Why do you get sad or scared? What makes you happy or excited? What do you do if you become shy or angry? This book will help students recognize these feelings, and to see that everyone has the same feelings, and probably for the same reasons.

This is a must have book for every library!

Because this book is not a story, there are not many skills and strategies to use, but there are a few. The main focus of this book is feelings, who has them, how do you get them and what do you do with them. 

Reading level: 2.9 
Theme/subject: feelings/emotions

Genre: fiction

Reading skills and strategies:

• Author's point of view – First person. Be sure to find 3 pieces of evidence to support this.
• Author's purpose – entertain/inform {evidence} The book give examples of different feelings and reason why you might feel that way and how you might deal with that feeling.
• Cause and effect – Why did she feel silly? Because she made a funny face and wears goofy clothes. Why does she feel scared? Because of the thunder and lightning. Why is she disappointed? Because her friend couldn’t come play. Why does he cry? Because he is sad. Why does she frown and growl? Because she was angry. Why was the boy thankful? Because someone fixed his truck. Why does she feel like giving up? Because she is frustrated. Why does she suddenly feel shy? Because someone waves and says hello to her. Why is he bored? Because there is nothing to do. Why is she jealous? Because she doesn’t want to take turns.
• Classify & categorize – Classify feelings – categorize feelings that put you in a good mood and ones that put you in a bad mood.
• Connections - {possible text-to-self connections} Connecting to any of the feelings or moods that are in the book.
• Main idea & details - {main idea} The story is mostly about your feelings. {details} happy, sad, loud, frustrated, etc.
• Strong thought – The book shows many feelings and reasons why the characters feel that way. Pick a feeling from the book and write about something that makes you feel that way.
• Theme – feelings change all the time. 
• Visualize – The characters in this story showed many different feelings and moods. Visualize yourself being stressed out. What makes you feel stressed and what do you do to “de-stress”.

I created a packet of activities to go with this book that focus on feelings.

Happy Reading!