Little Bird’s Day: Describing Little Bird’s Feelings Activity is a beautifully simple yet powerful resource designed to help young learners explore character emotions using the story Little Bird’s Day by Sally Morgan and Johnny Warrkatja Malibirr. As Little Bird journeys from morning to night, students reflect on how changes in setting influence how the bird feels, supporting the development of emotional literacy, empathy and descriptive language.

This resource uses visual prompts and sentence scaffolds to guide students through analysing key moments in the text. It builds comprehension and expressive writing skills while fostering text-to-self connections and creative thinking. With differentiated line options and flexible formats, it can be adapted for both whole-class and small group instruction.

Key Learning Outcomes:

• ✅ Identify emotional changes in a character across different moments in a story
• ✅ Use visual and written cues to represent emotions through drawing and description
• ✅ Strengthen descriptive vocabulary and sentence-level writing
• ✅ Connect personally with text through reflection and empathy

What’s Included:

• Printable worksheet templates featuring sentence strips from the book
• Drawing space for students to represent the chosen moment visually
• Writing space for students to describe Little Bird’s feelings
• Three line widths included: 24mm, 18mm and 14mm
• Versions available in our basic fun font and all Australian state fonts

Materials Needed:

• Printed student templates
• Scissors and glue (for pasting the sentence strip)
• Pencils, crayons, markers or paint for illustration

How to Use:

• Read Little Bird’s Day aloud, pausing to reflect on how Little Bird might be feeling at different points in the day
• Provide students with a sentence strip or allow them to choose one from the story
• Students glue the strip into the worksheet, then draw a picture that reflects the emotion of that moment
• Students write a sentence describing Little Bird’s feelings using descriptive language
• Use finished pages as discussion tools or to build a class feelings journal

Ideas for Classroom Use:

• 💡 Model a sample response as a class to scaffold expectations
• 💡 Use as part of a whole-class text response or guided reading group
• 💡 Enlarge to A3 for painting or collage-based art integration
• 💡 Use in conjunction with the other resources in our Little Bird’s Day Mini Book PACKAGE

Top Teacher Tips:

• 💛 Provide sentence starters for students needing writing support (e.g. “I think Little Bird feels…”)
• 💛 Encourage students to use colour symbolically in their drawings (e.g. warm tones for joy, dark tones for worry)
• 💛 Invite students to act out the emotion for kinaesthetic engagement and deeper understanding

Little Bird’s Day: Describing Little Bird’s Feelings Activity is a thoughtful and creative way to help students connect emotionally with texts while building vocabulary, comprehension and empathy in a supportive and meaningful context.