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Platypus Feels

Reading feelings in faces and in moments: happy and sad, calm and angry, excited and tired, scared and cosy

Ages 3-6 Feelings, calm and my body Free, no sign-up

Play Platypus Feels More in The Cosy Burrow

How it plays

Ruby Roo asks a question and two pictures appear. First feeling faces (the same faces as Koala's Calm-Down and Talk): which face is happy, which face is calm? Then moments: who feels scared, who feels cosy and safe? A right tap says why ("Platypus feels sad. His tower fell down."); the other tap names what it shows and asks again.

What it's for

Reading feelings in faces and in moments: happy and sad, calm and angry, excited and tired, scared and cosy. It adapts as your child plays: after a few rounds that go well it steps up a little, and after a couple of hard ones it quietly steps back. The level number only ever goes up.

There is no score to lose and no way to fail. A wrong move is met with a gentle nudge, and a level ends when it's won.

Away from the screen: Feelings faces in the mirror

About two minutes, with things most homes have.

Sit in front of a mirror together and take turns pulling a face: happy, sad, angry, scared, calm.
Guess each other's feeling, and say one thing that might make someone feel that way.
Finish with a calm face and three slow breaths together.

Three questions to ask while they play

What made you feel happy today?
What does your face do when you feel cross?
What helps you feel calm again?

Play together

Things to say or ask

How do you think Platypus feels?
Make a face like that. How does it feel?
When did you feel like that?

Taking turns on one device: One player makes the face; the other guesses the feeling and taps it. Swap.

Talk-about cards: a question a day for a week, for the car or the dinner table. Print them, or read them from your phone.

If they find it hard

Name feelings as they happen ("You look frustrated"). It helps children learn the words, and that every feeling is OK, even when some behaviour isn't. Or try Koala's Calm-Down first: the same feeling faces, one at a time, after slow breathing.

A sheet to print

Print the Platypus Feels sheet

One A4 page, in black and white or colour.

From two to eight

Tiny Steps: made for two- and three-year-olds too. With Tiny Steps on, it stays on its gentlest level, a not-yet tap is never counted, and there's nothing to read.

Switch Tiny Steps or Big Steps on in Who's playing?, on the grown-ups' page.

What it practises

Naming feelings. Knowing and naming how you feel.
AC9HPFP03 (Health and Physical Education, Foundation); EYLF 1 (Early Years Learning Framework V2.0); EYLF 3 (Early Years Learning Framework V2.0)
Getting along with others. Taking turns, sharing, losing well, having a go, saying sorry, and noticing when a friend is sad.
AC9HPFP02 (Health and Physical Education, Foundation); AC9HPFP04 (Health and Physical Education, Foundation); EYLF 2 (Early Years Learning Framework V2.0)

The codes are from the Early Years Learning Framework V2.0 (for three- to five-year-olds) and the Australian Curriculum v9 (Foundation to Year 2). Each links to the official wording. Every skill, and the games for it.

What it costs, and what we collect

Nothing, and nothing. There is no account, no advertising and no tracking of any kind. Which games have been played is remembered on your own device and is never sent anywhere. The full version is here, and it's short.

A smile when he's happy, a tear when he's sad, A frown when he's cross and the day's going bad. But a cuddle, a lantern, a float in the creek, And Platypus feels calm and cosy all week.

Where it lives

Platypus Feels lives in The Cosy Burrow — feelings, calm and my body. It works on a phone, a tablet or a classroom screen, and once it's been opened it keeps working with no signal at all.