The method · feeling science

Feeling science, from 3 to 18

Feelings aren't a mood to log — they're a subject a child can learn, the way they learn number sense or the water cycle. There's a map with two directions (how pleasant, how much energy; Russell 1980), and a child can grow into it: name a feeling at four, map the whole space at eleven, weigh how to steer it at sixteen.

The same idea, met four times, deeper each band. Every game is on-device — nothing you feel is ever recorded, tracked, or scored. It is a map, not a mood meter, and never a diagnosis.

Ages 3–5

First feelings

Name a feeling, find what caused it, and tell high energy from low. One thing at a time — no reading required.

Ages 6–8

The four corners

The feelings map has four corners — pleasant or unpleasant, high or low energy. A feeling can be shown or hidden, and a small move can shift how it sits.

Ages 9–14

The whole map

The full pleasantness × energy map: predict where a word lives, check it against thousands of real raters, tell close shades apart, and find where a feeling shows up in the body.

Ages 15–18

The science of feeling

Weigh regulation strategies by their honest evidence, watch a feeling change over time, read feeling words across languages, and think clearly about mood data — never a tracker of you.

A subject, not a tracker

These games teach children to name and reason about feelings — a well-evidenced foundation for emotional literacy. They are not therapy, they do not diagnose, and they never keep a record of how a child feels. The one app that lets you note how you feel — privately, on your own device — is TempCheck, and even that saves nothing to any server.

Browse it as stories: stories by feeling → · the open word list: the Emotion Lexicon → · this week's puzzle: Feeling word of the week →

22 feeling-science games across four age bands. See also how we teach.