Calm down kits
![Picture](/uploads/1/2/0/5/120562547/published/924311339.jpg?1531234409)
As teachers and counselors, it is important to teach students productive and healthy ways to deal with emotions such as anger, sadness or frustration. By teaching students different tools they can use to deal with these emotions in a healthy way, we are helping the individual student and eliminating a potential disruption to the learning environment. The first step in doing this is being proactive and ready for a child who needs some additional help calming down within the classroom. When doing this, you need to create an area within the classroom to “house” these tools and strategies and give it a name such as “Cool Down Spot”, “Cool Down Corner”, “Cool Down Cushion”. The purpose of this area is preventative, as a place where a student can voluntarily go when they identify signs of frustration before hitting the point of no return.
Every single classroom and area in this building will have a calm down kit with a designated safe place or plan. You can call this place whatever you would like in your classroom, some examples may include: Chill Zone, Alaska, Calm Down Area, The Hokey Pokey Clinic (a place to turn yourself around), Safe Spot, etc. Try to avoid calling this area a Time Out spot as this is not intended to be a negative consequence for inappropriate behaviors.
Every single classroom and area in this building will have a calm down kit with a designated safe place or plan. You can call this place whatever you would like in your classroom, some examples may include: Chill Zone, Alaska, Calm Down Area, The Hokey Pokey Clinic (a place to turn yourself around), Safe Spot, etc. Try to avoid calling this area a Time Out spot as this is not intended to be a negative consequence for inappropriate behaviors.