Zones of Regulation

Post date: Nov 12, 2016 3:49:04 AM

Whew, life has been busy and I have gotten a week behind! I spent 2 days this week at the Iowa School Counselor Association Conference and learned alongside 700 school counselors from around the state. It was time well spent and I came back refreshed and filled with lots of great ideas to further support students, parents and staff of Lincoln Elementary.

This week I have been teaching the 1st lesson about Zones of Regulation. The "Zones" are Blue, Red, Yellow and Green and represent 4 different categories of feelings we can have, Sad/Tired, Happy/Focused, Frustrated/Excited and Angry/Terrified. The students learn that all feelings are okay to have, but we are at our best when we are in the green zone.

Each group of feelings is linked to an action, Blue=Rest, Green=Go, Yellow=Slow and Red=Stop. The students are grasping the concept really well because of how closely this is tied to a traffic light. After a student identifies the feeling they are having and the zone they are in they can use "tools" to return them to the green zone.

I am teaching feelings identification this week. Often when I ask students "How are you feeling?" They respond good or mad. Understanding that there are different feelings allows them to see the differences between Frustrated and Mad, Scared and Terrified, or Happy and Excited. These emotional pairs are all in different zones and use different tools to return to the green zone.

Please feel free to contact me if you have any additional questions regarding this.