Feelings Threads is a data visualisation feelings tracking activity for children that combines creativity, emotional awareness, and data collection in a unique and engaging activity for primary school students. Over five weeks, students will track their daily emotions using embroidery to create a vibrant, data-driven art piece. Each day, they’ll select a thread colour to represent their mood and stitch one square of a 5×5 grid.
At the end of the activity, they’ll add a stem to the grid, transforming it into a flower—a beautiful visualization of their emotional data. This project helps students understand how data can be collected, represented, and interpreted while fostering mindfulness and creativity.
Timing:
The activity is intended to take place over 5 weeks. It can be decided whether students are to stitch their day’s feelings each day, or perhaps stitch Monday-Friday’s feelings in one go every Friday. For this reason, we have included a mood-tracker where students can log their feelings on each day so they don’t forget before their stitching time!
Materials:
- Feelings Threads Worksheet
- Feelings Thread Presentation
- Embroidery Hoops
- Thread of multiple colours
- Thread cutters / Scissors
- Felt tip pens / colouring pencils
- Needles
- Felt squares
- Thread-keeping cards
© Data Education in Schools, University of Edinburgh, 2024. This resource is licensed CC BY-NC 4.0, unless otherwise indicated.