How are you feeling today? Ready to enter the emotional whirlwind of Riley’s mind? We are continuing our Disney Sunday Movie Night (for any night of the week) series today with a discussion guide for Disney & Pixar’s Inside Out from 2015. We have some questions and activities we hope will get your family laughing, thinking and sharing their feelings. After all, that is what this charming and thoughtful movie is all about! So, please join us for a Disney Movie Night and questions for connections with Joy, Sadness, Anger, Disgust and Fear and their first film, Inside Out.
Inside Out Movie Night, Easy Guide
We know you are busy, so we are not going to suggest intense crafting or baking in preparation for Disney Movie Night. Instead, here are some quick guidelines and about two minutes of prep with materials you should have around the house (no really).
Grab Some Paper and Pencils (Crayons, Markers or Whatever)
For this discussion about Inside Out and emotions, we are going to help everyone feel comfortable by incorporating some drawing or writing.
First grab a stack of paper: five pieces or even half pieces per person. Second, have everyone select pencils or something else for writing and drawing. We actually think colors will be especially useful for this discussion, so dig out those crayons, markers or colored pencils if you have them. Third… there is no third. Those are all the materials you will need.
Create a Cozy Environment
You probably know how your group likes to watch movies. Maybe you all like to cuddle together with fuzzy blankets, or maybe you just want some room to spread out. Do what works for you!
After the movie is over, try to create an environment where everyone in your group feels comfortable sharing. Gentle lighting and a seating arrangement (floor or chairs) where everyone can see and hear each other is helpful. Let everyone know that their thoughts are valued.
Get Ready to Listen and Share
Try to make space in the discussion for everyone to share. You may want to remind the group that they are not trying to fix or outdo each other and that everyone deserves to be heard without interruption.
If someone share something difficult, acknowledge their feelings with something like “It sounds like you were feeling scared when that happened,” or “I am sorry. That sounds so hard.”
One thing you can do to help others share is to share yourself. Being vulnerable with your loved ones is like a gift of self. When you share your feelings, it not only helps your family and friends know you, it helps them feel comfortable knowing and sharing themselves. You will just want to make sure that whatever you share is age appropriate for everyone in the room.
Start the Movie: Inside Out (2015)
Time to start Inside Out! You can find it on Disney+. If you do not have Disney+, make a trip to your local library to look for Inside Out. We borrow movies from our library, and if our neighborhood library does not have a movie we want, we request it through inter-library loan.
Seriously, libraries are amazing! Ask your local librarian for help.
Disney Sunday Movie Night Questions for Connections: Inside Out (2015)
After the beautiful (and funny) ending of Inside Out, pull out those crayons or pencils and give everyone five pieces of paper with these instructions:
Label the 5 Pieces with Emotions
Say something like this to your group: “Please spread out this paper in front of you. Across the top, label each piece of paper with the name of one of the five emotions we met in Riley’s mind. Please do not use the entire page, because we will need that space for the next step. When you are done you should have one piece of paper that says Joy, another piece that says Sadness, and then Anger, Disgust and Fear. These are now your emotion cards.
If you have non-writers in your group, you can help them label their papers using the colors that represent each character in Inside Out. So, write Joy in yellow, Sadness in blue, Anger in red, Disgust in green and Fear in purple. Hopefully, these colors will help them remember which paper is which.
Fill the Pages with Feeling
Now you can say: “After you have labeled all of your papers, please use the rest of the space on the emotion cards to represent how each of these emotions feels to you. You can write, color or draw to express these emotions”
Stuck? Here are some ideas to get the creativity flowing.
- Draw a scene of a time you felt this emotion strongly.
- Write some loose (does not need to rhyme) poetry about each emotion
- Imagine Inside Out takes place in your mind. Draw what you think the character representing each emotion would look like in your mind’s Headquarters.
- Write a definition for each emotion.
- Use color and shapes to represent this emotion in some abstract art.
Share Your (Paper) Emotions
After everyone has finished filling their five emotion cards, take turns going around the group and sharing. When each person has their turn, they may choose to read what they wrote, explain their drawing or share in another way that helps them feel comfortable and understood.
Share Emotions About Inside Out
Now that everyone has their five personal emotions prepared, you are going to gently start sharing those emotions. You are going to do this by applying the emotions to moments in the film Inside Out.
Explain to the group that you are going to remind everyone of specific scenes in the movie. When you do, each person should hold up the emotion card or cards that show the emotions they felt during that scene.
For example, if you were to say “Joy, Sadness and Bing Bong try to catch the Train of Thought.” Then you ask everyone to hold up the emotion or emotions they felt during that scene. Some people might hold up their Joy paper, because they are excited for the characters to ride the train back to Headquarters. Others might hold up Fear, because the ride seems treacherous and uncertain. Some people could hold up both Joy and Fear, because they felt both simultaneously. There are no “right” answers.
Here are the prompts based on scenes in the movie. Remember, you are going to read the individual moments and ask everyone in the group to hold up the emotion or emotions they felt during that scene.
- Riley plays hockey with her friends.
- Riley has her first day at her new school.
- Riley shares with her parents that she is missing her old home.
- Joy and Sadness slide out of Headquarters and get lost in Long Term Memory.
- Bing Bong helps Joy and Sadness escape on his rocket.
- Joy invites Sadness to reactivate the console in Headquarters.
- (Add your own moments from the film. Is there something that resonated with you that you want to discuss?)
Share Emotions Inside Each of Us
Now explain that you are going to do the same activity—you read a moment and everyone show their emotions—but this time, the moments will be from the group’s own lives.
We have a list of general suggestions here that you can use. But, we encourage you to adapt this list for your group. Elaborate, leave things out, or add new moments. If you have life events you want to discuss (for example, an upcoming math competition or the recent death of a loved one), you should insert them here. You may even wish to share feelings around significant local or world events. Make this part yours.
Once again, you are going to read out a list of moments and each person is going to hold up the emotion or emotions they feel about those moments.
- How you felt when you woke-up this morning.
- How you felt at bedtime last night.
- How you feel about sharing your feelings.
- Your first day of school (in the past or future).
- Trying something new.
- Visiting family and friends (hellos and goodbyes).
- Supporting someone in good or bad times.
- Being supported.
- Finding out you made a mistake
- Imagining your future.
- You can make this more specific for your group with prompts for younger kids around what they want to be when they grow-up. Older kids can imagine moving out of their parents’ place (or not), and adults can imagine the same situation with kids moving out or retirement.
- (Please add your own significant moments)
Bring Sharing to a Close, Inside Out Movie Night Guide
Hopefully this Inside Out discussion and activity guide will help everyone at your movie night understand each other and themselves a little better. At this point, you may wish to discuss the emotions that were shared or make some space to support those who have shared something emotionally overwhelming. You can close the discussion here by thanking everyone for sharing themselves so openly, or you can continue for some additional questions and an ongoing activity.
”Bonus” Discussion and Ongoing Activity
If your group still has some time and emotional energy left, you can finish with some further discussion about what was shared. Here are some final prompts and questions to bring the discussion to a close.
- How did you feel about sharing your emotions today?
- Are there times when you think it is important to control your emotions? Are there times when it is important to share them to act on them?
- In Inside Out, the characters discover that Riley’s memories can contain mixed emotions. Is this true in your life? Can you give an example from your life of a mixed-emotion memory?
- Is there a particular emotion you have an easy time expressing? Is there one you have a hard time expressing?
- How can we all support one another in times of joy, sadness, anger, fear and disgust?
And one ongoing activity for sharing: save your emotion cards. For the next week, when you are feeling one or more of the emotions strongly, show our group by placing the emotion card on your bedroom room or in another significant location. At dinner (or another set time), we can discuss their emotions we saw that day.
Thank you for reading this Disney Movie Night Discussion Guide for Inside Out.
We hope you use all or part of this guide in a movie night with people you care about. Disney Sunday Movie Night is an ongoing series at Mouse Brief. You can check-out for discussion guide to 2011’s The Muppets here, and we even have questions for connections for when you are waiting in line at Disneyland!
Please consider subscribing to our free newsletter to get future discussion guides in your inbox. We are going to keep the Inside Out fun going with future activities and discussion around Inside Out 2 and the new Disney+ series, Dream Productions, so we hope you will subscribe and join us!