Faces in the mirror

2–3 years · Social-emotional · 10 minutes

What you need

How to do it

Stand together at a mirror where you can both see your faces.

Make one clear expression — happy, sad, surprised, cross — and name it. Hold it long enough for your child to study it.

Invite them to copy. Then let them choose an expression and you copy theirs. Finish on a happy face; the last one tends to linger in the mood of the room.

Why it works

Copying an expression is not just imitation — the facial movement itself feeds back into how the emotion is recognised. Naming it at the same moment attaches a word, which is what later lets a child say 'I am cross' instead of hitting.