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Emotion Cards

Little ones always have big feelings! Here's how to create Emotion Cards to help them deal with, understand, and express their emotions.

Malak Abdelghaffar avatar
Written by Malak Abdelghaffar
Updated over 2 weeks ago

Emotion Cards are one of the most effective visual tools to help children recognize and deal with big feelings and emotions. Here's how you can use them with kiddos:

Recognize and label emotions: Give names to those big feelings.
🌟 Understand feelings: Explore how emotions affect them.
💡 Take positive actions: Learn effective ways to respond to emotions.


Step 1: Choose your Focus 🎯

Identify the goal or emotions you’d like to explore.

  • Search for specific emotions: Enter a set of emotions in the search bar to tailor your cards.

  • Use search samples: Select from our recommendations for a quick and easy start or from one of our ready-made templates.


Step 2: Cast Your Hero 👦

Make their emotion cards more relatable by adding your kiddo (or kiddos!) as the star of the deck:

  • Enter details: Add their characteristics like age or hair color to create a character.

  • Upload a photo: Transform your child’s picture into their Nookly character.

  • Let Nookly choose: Want a quick start? We’ll generate a character at random.

💡 Reuse saved profiles anytime to keep your child’s familiar hero in every activity.


Step 3: Customize your Cards 🎨

1️⃣ Pick a Card Style: You have three options to customize your cards and bring them to life

👉 Option 1: Emotion-Only Cards: Great for recognizing and labelling emotions.

👉 Option 2: Emotions and Positive Actions Cards: Ideal for teaching positive actions and managing reactions.

👉 Option 3: Social and Emotional Cards: Perfect for fostering Social-Emotional Learning skills.

2️⃣ Customize Further:

  • Set reading level: Match the text to your child’s reading ability for clear understanding.

  • Select the # of cards: Decide how many emotions or actions you’d like to feature.

  • Include extra details: Add context and relevant information to make the cards relatable to your child.

⚡ Our SEL cards are designed using the CASEL Framework, incorporating evidence-based strategies to effectively build essential social and emotional learning skills.


Step 4: Edit Draft Language ✏️

🎨 Time to make any tweaks to your text or add your personal touches! You have two ways to edit text on your emotion cards:

  1. Direct Text Editing

    • Click directly on the text you want to change.

    • Type your new word, phrase, or sentence.

    • Changes will save automatically.

    Example:
    ❌ “feeling happy” → ✅ “Feeling Happy and Relaxed!”

2. Chat with Nookly

Sometimes you want bigger changes, and that’s where the chat comes in. You can:

  • Ask for a complete rewrite of your cards.

  • Request simpler or more complex versions.

  • Suggest specific text you’d like swapped in.

  • Let Nookly generate another version for you.

Example prompts to try:

  • “Rewrite the emotions so that they're all about happy feelings.”

  • “Switch the order of the 1st and 6th cards.”

👉 Want more tips on how to edit your creation's text? Check out this guide!

Pro Tip: You’ll still be able to edit text after images generate, so don’t worry if you change your mind later.


Step 5: Bring your cards to life! 🎉

Your emotion cards will start generating (this usually takes ~5 minutes). As they appear, you can:

  1. Edit text (add, remove, or tweak).

  2. Stylize text (bold, resize, reposition).

  3. Edit images with full controls.

Click the ✏️ pencil icon on any image to regenerate with tweaks. Use chat for detailed requests (the clearer your prompt, the better the results!).

Your Image Editing Settings:

  • Zoom In/Out 🔍 – frame the character exactly how you envision.

  • Stability 🔧 – choose subtle or bold changes you'd like to see.

  • Expressiveness 🎭 – adjust how animated the hero looks.

💡 Tip: When you're editing using the chat, the way you phrase your request matters. Clear, specific prompts lead to the best results. [Check out this guide for examples of effective vs. less effective prompts.]

Once new images generate, pick your favorite—or keep tweaking until it matches your vision. You can edit one card at a time, and always return later for more changes.

✅ Don’t forget to hit Save Updates when you’re happy with an edit.
🎉 When your deck feels ready, click Save Edits & View.


Share your Emotion Cards

❤️ Love your Emotion Cards? Share them with the world!

✨ Click the Share button at the top-right corner to get a shareable link.
✨ Share your masterpiece with friends, family, or peers!

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