Zones of Regulation

The Grade 1 Busy Bees are learning all about self regulation which is a way to help us to be ready to learn! This process helps us to name our feelings and apply various strategies to deal with those feelings through the zones of regulation.

Exploring feelings, beyond the simple 'happy or sad' responses, helps children really understand what specific feelings can do to our bodies and how to deal with them. Being able to express our feelings with 'I statements' will be a starting point for our wee bees. For example, we will be working on 'I feel _______ because _____________________.' 

Here are some various emotions, we may be exploring...

We are understanding that our emotions impact our body. Sometimes we have difficulty controlling our bodies as a result of those feelings. The Zones of Regulation help us to really organize those feelings.

The next thing we will be working on, are the strategies to help us feel ready to learn again. We call these our Cookie Monster Strategies. After having watched this video, earlier in the school year, we understand that sometimes, it is hard to deal with our emotions. Sometimes we want things right now, just like Cookie Monster. He offered up some strategies for us to help us in these situations.  

We have made a list of these strategies and posted them in our classroom. One of them, is our recently introduced 'Calming Buckets'. These have some special activities to do to help us get back into the green zone. We have been using them with the whole class during a quiet time to get us ready to learn, especially after transition times. While they are a little bit of a noveltly right at the moment, we will be exploring these to see what may or may not work for us to help us focus, be calm and good to go! 

Stay tuned to our learnings as we explore more about this topic and hopefully see a different in our self-regulation.