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Cooling Down a Big Feeling

Run the Cooling Down a Big Feeling MicroSim Fullscreen

You can embed this MicroSim in your own course website with this iframe:

<iframe src="./main.html" width="100%" height="454px" scrolling="no"></iframe>

About this MicroSim

Cooling Down a Big Feeling is an interactive MicroSim for this health-education textbook.

Students explain how a calming strategy lowers a strong emotion over time by stepping through a "feelings thermometer" scenario.

Use the controls in the panel below the drawing to interact with the model, then talk through what changed and why. The MicroSim is width-responsive and can be embedded in any course page with the iframe shown above.

Bloom's Taxonomy level: Understand (L2) — explain, describe

Lesson Plan

Audience

This MicroSim is designed for Grade 2. For the K-3 bands the teacher typically drives the activity on a shared screen; older students can explore the MicroSim independently.

Learning Objective

Students explain how a calming strategy lowers a strong emotion over time by stepping through a "feelings thermometer" scenario.

This activity targets Bloom's Understand (L2) (explain, describe).

Suggested Use (about 10 minutes)

  1. Warm up (2 min). Ask students what they already know about the topic and let one volunteer describe what they see on the screen.
  2. Model it (3 min). Demonstrate the interaction once, thinking aloud so students hear the reasoning behind each choice.
  3. Guided practice (3 min). Invite students to try the interaction and to predict what will happen before they act.
  4. Discuss (2 min). Ask why the result came out the way it did, connecting the on-screen result back to the learning objective above.

Check for Understanding

Have each student (or pair) explain their result in one sentence, using the vocabulary from this chapter. Look for reasoning that matches the Understand-level objective rather than a lucky guess.

Specification

The full specification below was extracted from Chapter 3: Handling Conflict and Kind Play.

Type: microsim
**sim-id:** managing-strong-emotions-cooldown<br/>
**Library:** p5.js<br/>
**Status:** Specified

Bloom Taxonomy: Understand (L2)
Bloom Taxonomy Verb: explain, describe

Learning objective: Students explain how a calming strategy lowers a strong emotion over time by stepping through a "feelings thermometer" scenario.

Canvas layout:
- Left area (200px): A vertical "feelings thermometer" showing emotion intensity from calm (bottom, blue) to very upset (top, red)
- Right area (400px): A step-through scene with a character and a caption box, plus Next/Back buttons

Visual elements:
- Thermometer with a marker that moves up or down
- A simple cartoon character whose face changes expression (frustrated, calming, calm) at each stage
- Caption box below the character

Interactive controls:
- Button: "Next" advances to the next stage of the scenario
- Button: "Back" returns to the previous stage
- Dropdown: Choose which calming strategy the character tries (deep breaths, counting to ten, walking away)

Default parameters:
- Thermometer starts near the top (very upset) after a conflict scenario is described
- Default strategy: "deep breaths"

Data Visibility Requirements:
  Stage 1: Show thermometer high (red) with caption "A friend took the last turn on the swing. This character feels really upset!"
  Stage 2: Show the chosen calming strategy happening, thermometer marker begins moving down, caption names the strategy: "Taking three deep breaths..."
  Stage 3: Show thermometer lower (yellow), caption "The feeling is getting smaller."
  Stage 4: Show thermometer near bottom (blue/calm), caption "Now the character feels calm enough to talk about what happened."

Behavior:
- Changing the strategy dropdown resets the scenario and shows a slightly different caption for each strategy, so students see that different strategies can all work
- The thermometer marker animates smoothly between stages when Next/Back is clicked

Instructional Rationale: This is an Understand-level (explain) objective about a cause-and-effect process, so the design uses a step-through thermometer with visible stages rather than continuous animation, letting students trace how a calming strategy causes the emotion to shrink over time.

Implementation notes: Use p5.js. Keep the thermometer large and simple. Facial expressions should be easy to read from across a classroom.

References