R E STORAT IVE PRAC TICE S IN ELEM ENTARY S C H O O L
Continued from page 29
One of my favorite characters to talk about
with my students is Calming Corey who lives
in the upstairs part of the brain. Calming Co-
rey is the brain character in charge of regula-
tion, the one who tells us to take a breath,
go for a walk, or get a drink of water. We use
Calming Corey to directly teach regulation
strategies and practice them together. The
practice of frequently regulating together
and practicing different ways to regulate in-
stills the idea that regulation is a routine part
of life in my students. As a result, students are
more comfortable spontaneously regulating
in the classroom.
My classroom has a designated reset space
where students can go to regulate them-
selves. Most of the time students will go to
the reset space voluntarily, but occasion-
“Once a student is regulated,
it is tempting to let them
rejoin the community and the
activity without repairing the
harm. Without the repair step,
students are more likely to
repeat the behavior because
they are not returning to the
community by connecting
with peers and are not ac-
knowledging the space that
they harmed.”
Page 30 Winter 2019
ally one of the adults in the room may use
a restorative prompt to ask a student if they
think they need the reset space based on
where they appear to be on the Zones of
Regulation scale. The Zones of Regulation
range from blue to green to yellow to red.
There are different emotions that are associ-
ated with each colored zone. Each zone has
regulation strategies to help the person get
back to green, which is where we need to be
to learn. Generally students will go right over
to the space when prompted by an adult.
There are six regulation strategies that I di-
rectly teach to children. Keeping in mind
the idea that behavior is a child’s way of
expressing unmet needs, I based the six
strategies for regulation on behaviors I was
seeing in the classroom. For example, one of
my students would frequently bury herself
under three bean bags in our book nook
when she was feeling stressed or frustrated.
I recognized this action as a need for some-
thing heavy to be on her body to help her
regulate herself. I came up with a few strate-
gies that both squeeze the body and move
oxygen through her body at a more rapid
pace. The other regulation techniques are
progressive muscle relaxation, self-hugging
breathing exercises, and, for students need-
ing a fine motor strategy, the thumb and
finger press, which involves pressing the tip
of your thumb to each of the other fingers
one by one.
Once a student is regulated, it is tempting
to let them rejoin the community and the
activity without repairing the harm. Without
CSEE Connections