Feelings bingo for kids: twenty-four picture cards to print, with happy, sad and angry and annoyed on bright cards for preschool, kindergarten and parties. Print up to 200 different cards with calling cards to cut out, or play online, where each picture is read aloud. Free, with no sign-up.
Feelings bingo: printable cards and online game
Below are a 4 by 4 card with words, a 3 by 3 picture-only card, the calling cards and the online game.
How to play feelings bingo
Give each child a card, draw a calling card and say the word, and children cover that picture if it is on their card. For a harder game, give the clue instead and let them work out the word: “A big smile” is the happy, and “Slumped and sighing” is the bored. The first child to cover a full row, column or diagonal calls bingo and reads the covered pictures back to check.
Feelings bingo win patterns to try
One line, four corners, two lines and blackout all work with this pack, and the picture bingo for kids page has the table of patterns. A blackout on a 5 by 5 card covers 24 of this pack’s 24 pictures, so that game lasts until almost the whole pack has been called.
All 24 pictures in the feelings bingo pack
These are the 24 pictures that can appear on a card. The word column is what the game says aloud and prints under each picture, and the last column gives a clue to talk about.
| Picture | Word | Group | Clue to talk about |
|---|---|---|---|
| 😀 | happy | Good feeling | A big smile |
| 😢 | sad | Hard feeling | Tears or a heavy chest |
| 😠 | angry | Hard feeling | A hot face and tight fists |
| 😨 | scared | Hard feeling | A fast heartbeat |
| 😲 | surprised | In between | Wide eyes and open mouth |
| 😴 | sleepy | In between | Heavy eyes and yawns |
| 🤒 | sick | Hard feeling | A tummy ache or a hot head |
| 😎 | cool | Good feeling | Relaxed and proud |
| 🤔 | thinking | In between | A hand on the chin |
| 😍 | in love | Good feeling | Warm and caring |
| 😂 | laughing | Good feeling | Giggles and shaking shoulders |
| 😳 | embarrassed | Hard feeling | Red cheeks |
| 🥱 | bored | Hard feeling | Slumped and sighing |
| 😌 | calm | Good feeling | Slow, steady breathing |
| 🤩 | excited | Good feeling | Bouncy and fast-talking |
| 😕 | confused | Hard feeling | A scrunched brow |
| 😤 | frustrated | Hard feeling | Tense and sighing |
| 🥰 | loved | Good feeling | Warm and safe |
| 😬 | nervous | Hard feeling | Butterflies in the tummy |
| 🤗 | friendly | Good feeling | Smiling and waving |
| 😋 | yummy | Good feeling | Licking lips |
| 🥳 | celebrating | Good feeling | Cheering and jumping |
| 😇 | kind | Good feeling | A soft smile and helping hands |
| 🙄 | annoyed | Hard feeling | A sigh and an eye roll |
The 24 pictures fall into these groups:
| Group | Number | Which ones |
|---|---|---|
| Good feeling | 11 | happy, cool, in love, laughing, calm, excited, loved, friendly, yummy, celebrating and kind |
| Hard feeling | 10 | sad, angry, scared, sick, embarrassed, bored, confused, frustrated, nervous and annoyed |
| In between | 3 | surprised, sleepy and thinking |
Wikipedia’s emotion article explains how scientists describe feelings and what they do for us.
Social emotional learning games: why feelings bingo works
Social emotional learning games work best when they are low pressure, and bingo is exactly that: everyone is looking at a card and not at each other, so it is easier to talk about a feeling. Emotions bingo gives a shared word for each feeling, which helps children say “I feel nervous” instead of acting it out.
How many different feelings bingo cards are there?
Cards are built from this pack’s 24 pictures in random order. The table shows how many different cards that makes:
| Card size | Pictures | Free space | Different layouts | Different sets of pictures |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 × 3 | 8 | free star in the middle | 29,654,190,720 | 735,471 |
| 4 × 4 | 16 | no free space | 15,388,105,201,717,248,000 | 735,471 |
| 5 × 5 | 24 | free star in the middle | 620,448,401,733,239,439,360,000 | 1 |
Play feelings bingo online
Press Create game on a tablet or phone and share the link: each picture is read aloud and children tap it on their own card. The guide to playing bingo online with friends covers hosting.
Emotions activities for kids: feelings bingo ideas
Feelings bingo is a social and emotional learning game: it gives children words for feelings and helps them notice feelings in faces and in their own bodies. Try these ways to turn the game into a lesson:
- Show me: when a feeling is called, everyone shows it on their face.
- Tell a time: invite one child to share when they felt that way.
- Feeling thermometer: rate each feeling from calm to very big and talk about how to cool down.
- Helping strategies: for hard feelings such as angry and nervous, name one thing that helps: deep breaths, a hug or a break.
- Story links: use a picture book and cover the feelings the characters have.
- Circle time: play at the start of the day as a gentle check-in.
Feelings bingo: frequently asked questions
Which pictures are in the feelings bingo pack?
There are 24: happy, sad, angry, scared, surprised, sleepy, sick, cool, thinking, in love, laughing, embarrassed, bored, calm, excited, confused, frustrated, loved, nervous, friendly, yummy, celebrating, kind and annoyed.
Which group has the most pictures in feelings bingo?
Good feeling is the biggest group with 11 of the 24 pictures: happy, cool, in love, laughing, calm, excited, loved, friendly, yummy, celebrating, kind. The next biggest is Hard feeling, with 10.
Which pictures are easy to mix up?
Angry, frustrated and annoyed, scared and nervous, and happy, excited and celebrating are close in meaning, and loved and in love are almost the same face. That overlap is where the best conversations start. Talk through the differences before the first game, then use the clue column to check that everyone has the right word.
Which card sizes does the feelings bingo pack support?
A 3 by 3 card uses 8 of the 24 pictures, a 4 by 4 card uses 16 and a 5 by 5 card uses 24, so every card is a different mix.
Pictures: Twemoji by X Corp, licensed CC BY 4.0.