In this story, yellow refers to happiness, red is for anger and blue is linked to sadness. Do you agree with those colour choices? Why? Think of other emotions and choose colours that might represent them (e.g. frustration, disgust, envy). Invite the children to discuss their feelings. Sometimes we can feel a bit mixed up like the Colour Monster. It might help to have a friend, older brother or sister or a trusted adult help the child to sort out their feelings at those times, just like the Colour Monster and the little girl. Talk about the things which make the children feel happy, sad, angry, fearful and calm and loved. Love the collage-y illustrations of this picture book, but the text has some troubling issues. While it is vital to teach children to identify their emotions, it is just as important to help them understand that it is normal to feel more than one single emotion at a time, even about the same thing/person/idea. furthermore, labeling emotions with specific colors doesn't work as a one-size-fits-all solution, since color is a very personal experience; people feel very differently about the same color. Telling children that blue is sadness will confuse children who experience blue as tranquility, or power, or curiosity, or any number of other emotions. This book goes so far as to tell children how to experience certain emotions:

The little girl puts the Colour Monster’s feelings into separate jars. Use the template below to draw things that make you happy/ angry/sad etc. As a group, we discussed the interesting allocation of colour to the different emotions. Children who are particularly struggling could simply assign themselves a colour for their feeling. However, I wonder how useful this colour allocation is, as some children might have a favourite colour associated with a negative emotion.Let’s explore colour some more through messy play! The children might like to experiment with paint or water and food dye by mixing colours to see what new colours they can make. What colours can they create and what feelings do they link with their new colours? As an extension activity, the discussion could also focus on what things help when they are feeling sad, afraid or angry. The Color Monster by Anna Llenas teaches abour big emotions in a simple way for young children. In the story, an adorable monster has mixed-up feelings and the author helps to sort them out. Happiness is like the sun, anger is a burning fire, and calm is like the leaves swaying in the wind. Young children may not be able to tell you exactly what they are feeling, but they can use the concepts in this book to help express themselves. The format of the book allows for a conversation with children about managing their feelings 'putting them into bottles' and discussing why they might be feeling a particular emotion. For an even better way to find EYFS resources, discover tailored suggestions, and much more - visit the EYFS resource HUB! GO TO EYFS HUB

This book is a wonderful story about a “Color Monster” who is full of mixed up colors and emotions. A little girl takes the monster by the hand and gently helps the Color Monster untangle and separate out all of these feelings and put them into jars.Another thing that is just fantastic about this book is the use of metaphor. It compares anger to a fire you might want to stomp out, sadness to a rainy day, and calm like leaves swaying in the wind. If you are doing any sort of metaphor work with kids this is a GREAT book to get the wheels turning! Introduce the colors and feelingsin the story. Talk about different feelings you may have in different situation. For example, ask "Have you ever felt sad? Tell me about it". Then introduce this story about a monster whose feelings are all mixed-up! "He doesn't know how he feels. Let's find out more about Color Monster's feelings."