Kimochis® Soup in the Classroom

Kimochis Soup is a vehicle to provide students and adults with a visual, tangible tool that creates more safety for boys and girls, extraverted and introverted humans to consider their feelings. Making Kimochis Soup is ideal for class meetings, restorative justice, conflict resolution and holding meaningful classroom conversations.

Materials: Kimochis feeling pillows and soup pot, basket or bowl

Activity Duration: Varies. Depends how long you like to cook (5-30 minutes)

Directions for Making Kimochis Soup:

NOTE: Like all recipes, you may start with the suggestions below and then get your own chef hat and adjust the recipe based on your style and students’ needs. Also, if you don’t over teach, students come up with original ways to make and debrief Kimochis Soup on their own!

1. Sprinkle Kimochis feeling pillows on the floor or table with the bowl or soup pot in the middle. 
(Limit the number of feeling pillows for younger students or students who do not read yet.)
2. Explain that this is a no-talking activity. (Say, “no talking” and they still may talk. If it is healthy talking you will want to allow it. If you sense talking will make things worse, gently remind, “no talking.”
 This is a professional judgment call.)
3. Start making a Kimochis Soup by naming what kind of soup you are making. Here is a list of some very yummy and helpful soups in the classroom.
   • Recess soup
   • First Day of School soup
   • Lunchtime soup
   • Math soup
   • Test Soup
   • Friendship soup
   • Homework soup
4. Let the student(s) select any and all of feeling pillows they have about the soup’s topic and toss them into the bowl. You may toss in feeling pillows as well. Or you can:
   • Have students individually take turns putting a feeling pillow in the soup.
   • Have all students explore the feeling pillows together and select one feeling to put in the soup. This is fantastic for older kids as a way to get less verbal students to participate. Also, students who are masking or not wanting others to know what they may be feeling will be more likely to select a feeling pillow because they may feel safer doing something in a crowd rather than being put on the spot.
5. Debrief the soup using various non-verbal and verbal ways for students to consider and reflect. (See debriefing options below.)

Directions for Debriefing Kimochis® Soup

The suggestions below are just to help you get started. Less is best. Allow kids to naturally pick up and talk about feelings. Enjoy communicating with reduced use of Wh-questions (what, why, when, how, where) when possible.