The first tool is the Mood Meter from the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence RULER program. Each letter of the word RULER stands for an important emotional intelligence skill that everyone needs in order to live successfully at school, work and home.

Recognizing emotions in oneself and others
Understanding the causes and consequences of emotions
Labeling emotions with a nuanced vocabulary
Expressing emotions in accordance with cultural norms and social context
Regulating emotions with helpful strategies

If there is enough space, you can lay the mood meter out on the ground or floor, using ropes for the axes and coloured tarpaulins for the quadrants. It is good to think first about the vertical axis, which is about energy. I often introduce this concept to students using heartbeat, asking them, “What is the first sound we ever hear?” (Our mother’s heartbeat). I ask children to find their pulse (usually in their neck) and tap their hand in time with it. Then we might do a minute of running on the spot or jumping jacks and see how that changes the speed of our heartbeat and energy level. Sometimes I then use a simple breathing exercise (like this Hand Breathing Exercise) to help them bring their energy level and heartbeat back down. An interesting addition to this breathing exercise is for me to sing a folk song or nursery rhyme while the children breathe and trace around their fingers. We also play games with rhythmic clapping and body percussion, like trying to send a clap around the circle maintaining a steady beat, without speeding up, or repeating a simple rhythm at a variety of speeds, observing what happens to our energy levels as the tempo changes.

Once both axes have been laid down and the pupils understand the concept of each quadrant, they place boards with feeling words painted on them in the quadrant or zone they think is appropriate. Then we step back, take a look and see if we agree with the placement of the words, moving them around, trying them out in different spots, recognising that each person has their own unique experience and understanding of each word, so there is no one correct answer.

If you don’t have enough space, materials or resources to lay the Mood Meter out on the floor, you can use coloured paper or card and masking tape to construct a desktop version. Pupils can then experiment with placing feeling words printed or written on paper or Post-It notes. If you have an empty section of wall in your classroom or corridor, you could also create a painted version for pupils to interact with.

When working with children and teenagers individually, particularly those who find it hard to put into words how they are feeling, I often start or end a conversation by asking them where they are on the mood meter in that moment. If they enjoy using telephone apps, we go to the Mood Meter app, but I also have A3 printed versions on the door of my room with text and/or emojis (please feel free to download the PDF files and print them out for use in your classroom, office or home!):

They might start by pointing out an emoji or saying they have lots of energy, for example, and I then offer some possible words from the poster that includes a range of specific words to describe feelings. We might talk about what has happened to cause that feeling; consider together if they want to stay with it or move to a different zone of the mood meter; and discuss what they might need to make that move. Usually, I find it easy, using the mood meter, to engage kids in conversations that really get to the heart of how they are feeling. An example to illustrate this – a 13-year-old pupil came for an individual session after the end of lessons, feeling like they were in the blue zone, lacking in energy, bored, and fed up. This pupil chose for us to play the drum kit and then do some boxing together to their favourite music. By the end of the session we were both in the yellow zone! I have made a separate post of musical activities for exploring the mood meter, which I invite you to try, even if you don’t consider yourself to be a musician or music teacher.

Working in this way, over time, pupils’ self-awareness un emotional regulation really grow and develop as they get used to naming how they feel and figure out all the different things they can do to notice, understand, accept and regulate their emotions. I also offer pupils small printed cards of the mood meter to keep at home or in their school bag, so they can use it every day. Another handy reminder is to make bracelets, key-rings or beaded straps for a phone case using red, blue, green and yellow beads.

It is important to remember that ALL the moods and emotions are necessary, useful, and NORMAL! We don’t need to try and change someone’s mood or feeling just because it makes us feel uncomfortable. As teachers, we set tasks for our pupils that actually REQUIRE them to be in all four zones of the Mood Meter. We just need to pay careful attention to how we set tasks throughout the day, to ensure there is a good mix of emotional energy requirements and levels of pleasantness. We must also take care at the moments of transition from high energy to low energy tasks and vice versa, helping children who struggle with calming down after a fun activity to regulate themselves, for example. Think about which zone a pupil would need to be in to complete the following tasks successfully:

• Giving a talk to the whole class
• Doing a repetitive task that is rather boring, but still necessary for learning a particular skill or curriculum content
• Collaborating with a partner on a creative project
• Thinking through a challenging word problem in Maths
• Learning a poem off by heart
• Competing in a sports competition
• Tidying up their books and equipment at the end of a lesson
• Reading and understanding a text about a new Science topic
• Listening to the teacher give instructions
• Performing a song or a sketch in a small group in front of the whole school
• Checking or editing a text they have written

This video from the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence gives some examples: