I love finding fun ways to talk to my daughter about emotions and reading facial cues, so I was really excited when we had to opportunity to check out this fun children’s book about facial expressions. We even paired it with some silly eyebrow activities for kids!

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Bad Brows was written by Jason Carter Eaton and illustrated by Mike Petrik. In this silly story, a young boy named Bernard wakes up one morning to find that his eyebrows have taken on a life of their own. No matter what he does, he can’t seem to control them! They change constantly, and those around him start to misread his emotional state. He may be perfectly happy, but his eyebrows make it look like he is scowling. When he gets into trouble, his eyebrows make it look like he isn’t taking things seriously. He finds it increasingly difficult to handle them, until he uncovers the reason behind his bad brows.

This funny story had my daughter laughing out loud and requesting that I read it again and again. The illustrations take the bad brows story to the extreme, showing them doing a ton of absolutely ridiculous (and sometimes gross) things. Kids will delight in watching Bernard’s silly brows acting up, and will remember the effect that our facial expressions have on those around us.

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Expressive Eyebrows

You can say a lot with your eyebrows and the look on your face. Have kids practice saying things with different facial expressions and see how each expression can change the meaning of the words. Next, print out this page and have them draw eyebrows on each face to match the emotion listed next to it. Provide them with mirrors and allow them to see what their eyebrows do when they make certain expressions.

Brow Cookies

We love baking together, so we were inspired to bring this book to life with silly cookies inspired by the illustrations. First, we baked up a batch of plain sugar cookies. You could also use the slice and bake cookie dough to make your base cookies. While the cookies were cooling, I melted chocolate wafers and poured the liquid chocolate into a plastic bag with a tiny hole snipped in the corner. I laid the cookies on sheets of wax paper and we used the bags to squeeze two dots onto each cookie. Then we placed a candy eyeball on each spot. Last, we used the piping bags to draw all kinds of silly eyebrow shapes over the eyes and sprinkled chocolate sprinkles over them. We not only had a lot of fun making these, but they were delicious to eat!

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Symmetry Painting

Eyebrows provide a great opportunity to talk to kids about symmetry. Draw a large circle on a piece of paper to make a head. Then fold the paper in half and then unfold it so that there is a crease in the middle of the face. Have kids paint an eye and an eyebrow on one half of the page.and then refold the paper and have them push down so the same eye and eyebrow appear on the other side of the face. Unfold the paper so kids can see the symmetry on their painted faces, then encourage them to finish painting the face and hair on their painting. Talk about other parts of the face, head or body that are symmetrical.

Pipe Cleaner Eyebrows

Bernard’s brows take on a lot of funny shapes in the illustrations. So we decided to take some pipe cleaners and recreate some of them to put on our faces. Sculpting the pipe cleaners was a great way to work on fine motor skills, and we had a blast putting the eyebrows on our faces and laughing at our silly looks.

What is your favorite children’s book about facial expressions and emotions? Share in the comments below, and don’t forget to share this with a friend!

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