What's included in the Feelings and Emotions I Wonder Discussion Prompts resource and why is it useful?

EYFS Feelings and Emotions I Wonder Discussion Prompts get children thinking and wondering out loud. Each slide shows one full-screen photograph with a single big question, and the slide notes give you follow-up questions, so any adult can lead a rich discussion with no preparation. The content includes a PowerPoint with 12 discussion prompts and an adult guidance slide, covering happiness, contentment, sadness, worry, boredom, anger, excitement, tiredness, frustration and why it's good to talk about our feelings. They make ideal feelings talk prompts and a carpet-time hook for your feelings topic, developing children's communication and language skills and oracy.

Every slide supports the Early Learning Goals for Listening, Attention and Understanding and Speaking, and the questions also link to Personal, Social and Emotional Development: Self-Regulation. Children's answers make useful observations to inform your ELG judgements.

The EEF Early Years Toolkit rates communication and language approaches at about +7 months' additional progress, at very low cost.

Naming Our Feelings

Questions about what different feelings look and feel like, such as "What does it look like when we are bored?"

Big Feelings

Questions about anger, sadness and frustration, such as "Do people always cry when they are sad?"

Helping Each Other

Questions about supporting others with their feelings, such as "If someone felt sad, how could I help them?"

Slide Notes for Adults

Every slide comes with follow-up questions in the notes, such as "Is being bored a bad thing or can it be a good thing?".

How do our EYFS I Wonder discussion prompts work?

Our I Wonder discussion prompts are a teacher-led PowerPoint for the interactive whiteboard. Show a slide, read the question aloud, give children thinking time, then use the slide notes to extend the discussion. Open the slides in Presenter View so you can see the notes while the class sees only the photo and question. The questions are open by design, so there's no right answer to find: the aim is talk, reasoning and vocabulary. You can also use them:

• as a carpet-time hook to open a topic, or as a daily "wonder" routine
• with talk partners, who turn and talk about the question before sharing with the class
• for small-group talk with a practitioner or TA, exploring one or two slides in depth
• in continuous provision, with a slide left on screen or printed and placed in a themed area such as a calm corner
• as a writing and mark-making hook, with children drawing or emergent-writing their own "I wonder..." ideas
• at home, shared on your class app or newsletter as a family conversation starter

Try showing the photograph first and asking "What can you see? What do you wonder?" Stretch confident talkers with the follow-up questions in the notes, or simplify by narrowing an open question to a choice (e.g. "Happy or excited?"). Record children's own "I wonder" questions on a Wonder Wall and return to them through books, play and research.

Supporting Children with EAL and SEND

The full-screen photographs give every child something to talk about, so children can point, gesture or use single words before building to sentences. Pair the slides with Makaton or visuals your setting already uses. These simple approaches can also help:

• Simplified question stems: break questions into smaller steps and use yes/no questions (e.g. "Is the child yawning?", "Can you see the slide?").
• Reduce cognitive load: focus children's attention on the photo by pointing to key parts.
• Response scaffolds: provide sentence starters (e.g. "I wonder...", "I think...") to support expressive language.

You can explore more of our I Wonder discussion prompts here.