Go Fish: Catch a Feeling – A Classic Game with a Purposeful Twist
Believe it or not, we’re entering August! The fun of the carefree, summer weekend trips and evenings without sports practice, music lessons and homework are ending. However, we still have time for a bit more play as the summer wraps up.
If you’ve already been playing Feelings Memory, your child may be ready to take a step beyond basic feelings identification within the self. (If you haven’t played Feelings Memory yet, you can reference my earlier blog by clicking here). In preparation for the return to school, it might be helpful to introduce a new game to target understanding the emotions of others. In this blog, I will introduce another do-it-yourself game to enhance social-emotional learning: “Go Fish: Catch a Feeling.”
Why Play “Go Fish: Catch a Feeling”?
You’ve probably heard talk about people who are extreme empaths, feeling the emotions of others to the point of pathology. On the other end of the spectrum, the concept of narcissism has also captured people’s attention of late. If we look beyond the labels, our interest in these concepts speaks to our curiosity about how people relate to one another and a desire to better understand our interconnectedness. How we think, feel and behave are shaped within relationships, starting prenatally and continuing across our lifespans; relationships impact views of ourselves, others, and our communities.
We can take opportunities to teach our children how to take care of themselves and others in a relationally, healthy manner through modeling, in-the-moment teaching, reflective practices, and intentional acts. Using game play as a directive teaching tool can help children practice these skills in a fun and interactive way. When playing any version of Go Fish, children have opportunities to develop social skills in terms of attuned listening, turn-taking, asking politely for what you need, and accepting no for an answer. In our version of Go Fish, we’re going to augment those learning opportunities with the addition of skills to build emotional intelligence.
Some children need more practice to understand theory of mind, meaning an understanding that the way the child thinks or feels may be different from other people’s perspectives. Other children may need more practice deciding what to do with the uncomfortable feelings that arise within themselves in response to another person’s experiences. Our version of “Go Fish,” can help parents target which skills need to be addressed to enhance their child’s interpersonal learning experiences.
Let’s Talk about Catching “Context Clues”
No one knows how another person is feeling better than the person experiencing the emotion. So, unless the person says, “I feel angry,” we’re guessing. However, we can make educated guesses based upon context clues. Those clues include facial expression, tone of voice, body language, words used/not used, and environmental cues. We are not expecting our children to report all aspects of these cues. However, by helping them to increase their awareness of context clues, we can help build their capacity for healthy interpersonal relationships.
Here’s an example of context clues in action: Your child sees a friend from a distance and she’s jumping up and down. Your child thinks, “I like jumping; jumping is fun! We’re at a party; parties are fun! I’m happy when I’m jumping at parties. My friend must be happy.” However, as your child gets closer to the jumping friend, your child notices that the friend’s parent is close by. The parent is speaking firmly to the friend and the friend is crying. Now, with additional context clues, your child realizes the friend is not happy, but maybe sad or angry or both. Additional context clues are still needed. However, this kind of awareness can help your child determine how to approach interpersonal experiences and can build the capacity for empathy.
How to Play
The concept behind this game is very simple… collect the most books of feelings fish to win! Watch this video for a walk-through on the adaptations particular to our version of Go Fish or scroll down to read the entire game instructions.
Set-up:
Mix the cards thoroughly.
Place all “feelings fish” cards feelings side down, in a scattered pile. This pile becomes the “fishing pond.”
Each player draws five feelings fish cards to make their hand. You can look at your hand, but do not show your cards to other players. (If you are playing with only two players, you might want to decrease the number of feelings fish sets being used in the game, to manage the amount of time spent in the game.)
Game Play:
The youngest player starts by asking any other player if that player has a certain feelings fish (e.g. “Do you have any angry fish?”). Players can only request feelings fish that are in their hands.
For non-readers or to help with transparency, the players might show the feelings fish card from their hand that’s being requested.
The requested player says either, “Yes, I do have that feelings fish” or “No, go fish,” depending upon whether that feelings fish is in the requested player’s hand.
If the card is in the requested player’s hand, the player turns over all of the cards with that emotion.
The receiving player then talks about one “context clue” associated with the feeling for each card collected. For example, one clue that a friend is sad, could be noticing tears.
Once the original player gathers a card and states a context clue, the original player repeats the process, either asking for the same feelings fish from a different player or a different feelings fish from any player.
Remember who asks for what because you never know what you might be looking for on your turn.
If the card is not in the requested player’s hand, the player responds, “No, go fish,” resulting in the original player drawing another feelings fish from the fishing pond.
When a player goes to the fishing pond, this ends that players turn. Play continues in a counter-clockwise direction.
Once any player has a feelings fish book in hand, meaning all four matching feelings fish, the player puts the book on the table and recalls a time when the player might have “caught” that feeling being experienced by another person, applying context clues in the description.
That player then draws a new card from the fishing pond to end the turn.
Special Circumstance Rules:
If a player pulls a card from the fishing pond that creates a book, steps for booking the fish are followed.
The player can again draw another card from the fishing pond, following the booking steps.
If a player runs out of cards in the hand at any time, that player draws another card from the fishing pond.
If the player pulls a feelings fish from the fishing pond that the player just requested, and for which the player was given a “No, go fish” response, the player shows the drawn card and states, “Got what I called!” The player can then draw another card from the fishing pond.
Winning the Game:
Play continues until all cards are matched in books.
The player with the most books wins!
How to Create the Cards
Creating the cards is not difficult, but it took me a little more time than creating the Feelings Memory cards. At minimum, all you need is a printer, copy paper, glue and scissors. Card stock, lamination machine, lamination pockets, and paper cutter are optional.
Directions:
Download our “Go Fish: Catch a Feeling” cards here.
Print four copies.
Consider pasting the feelings fish pages onto a piece of paper or onto cardstock to avoid creating cards that are semi-transparent when held.
From here, you have two options:
Cut the feelings fish cards and the backs of the cards. Glue backs onto each individual feelings fish card, as seen in the video.
OR cut only the edges from the feelings fish sheets and backs of cards sheets. Glue the feelings fish sheets and backs of cards sheets together in a manner where the card edges line-up when cut.
Whichever option you decide, be sure that the fronts and backs are always facing the same way, so that the cards will look uniform when held.
For durability, consider laminating.
Cut out the cards.
You’re ready to play!
Keeping it Fresh
Similar to Feelings Memory, there are simple ways to keep the game interesting and appropriately challenging for your child. Here are some ideas:
Increase the number of context clues needed to lay down a book to increase the challenge. Start with one context clue per “caught a feeling” scenario and move up from there.
Watch a movie and then play the game based upon feelings noticed through characters from the movie. Disney® movies have lots of great feelings themes to explore!
Make new cards with different emotions. Again, there are so many feelings that we can “catch” when we’re looking for them.
Use a play on the word “catch,” to take empathy to the next level. As the child talks about noticing a feeling in another person, are there parts of that feeling that they “catch.” Notice how that caught feeling shows up for the child.
For example, your child might notice that his friend felt sad when his paper airplane didn’t fly like he wanted it to. How did your child feel when he noticed his friend’s sadness? Not “what did you do,” but “how did you feel?” He might report that he noticed a sad feeling in himself as well. Validate and normalize that experience of empathy.
You can take an additional step of how we respond to others based upon how that feeling resonated within us. A slowing down of the process between a “caught” feeling and behavior can be helpful with developing the capacity to intentionally respond rather than impulsively react.
Go Play, “Go Fish”!
While we may miss the ease of opportunities to play with our kids as summer comes to an end, it doesn’t mean that we should stop playing! I could write a whole separate blog about the researched benefits to play, specifically play with parents. For now, keep finding time to play! Download our “Go Fish: Catch a Feeling” cards and try the game with your child. As always, share your experience on social media and tag us. I can’t wait to hear how you played, what you found, and how your child responded!