Shared Feelings

About This Worksheet

This worksheet helps children compare how another person may feel with how they might feel in the same situation. Students read seven familiar examples involving forgotten homework, praise from a teacher, being left out of a game, earning a high score, dropping an ice cream, struggling with shoes, and losing after trying hard. For each situation, they name the other person’s emotion and then reflect on their own possible reaction. The activity teaches that empathy begins with understanding someone else while also recognizing that two people may not feel exactly the same way.

Skills Developed

Students strengthen emotion recognition, perspective-taking, self-awareness, and personal reflection. They practice using details from each situation to identify feelings such as worry, pride, disappointment, frustration, embarrassment, or sadness. Comparing another person’s response with their own also helps children understand that emotions are personal and can vary from one person to another. These skills support patience and reduce the habit of assuming everyone should react in the same way.

Grade & Stage Appropriateness

This worksheet is best suited for elementary students in grades 2 through 5. Younger children may need a feeling-word bank or oral discussion before writing, while older students can choose more precise emotions and explain why their own response may differ. The short situations are easy to understand, but the comparison between two viewpoints adds a meaningful level of emotional thinking. It is especially useful for children who are beginning to understand that another person’s feelings can be valid even when they would react differently.

Connections to Collaborative for Academic, Social and Emotional Learning (CASEL)

This activity connects strongly with the CASEL areas of self-awareness and social awareness. Students notice their own likely reactions while also trying to understand the emotional experience of another person. When I use a worksheet like this, I remind children that empathy does not require us to feel the exact same emotion. What matters is recognizing that the other person’s feelings make sense from their point of view and responding with care.

Using This Worksheet

Teachers can use this page during an empathy lesson, morning meeting, counseling group, or discussion about different emotional reactions. It works well to compare answers as a class and point out that more than one feeling may be reasonable. Parents and homeschool educators can connect the situations to recent experiences involving schoolwork, games, praise, mistakes, or disappointment. Encourage children to explain their answers without judging a different response as wrong.