Teaching Self-Regulation Skills Through Everyday Routines ~ Ep. 80

Episode Summary

Being able to have self-regulation skills is essential for students. In this episode, I talk about how to teach self-regulation skills through daily classroom routines. I share practical strategies, including engaging activities like voice volume greetings and techniques such as five-finger breathing to help students calm down during transitions. I emphasize creating a ‘control spot’ or ‘calm corner’ in the classroom for self-regulation, equipped with familiar tools to support students during stress. Consistency in these practices is key as I provide additional tips for infusing self-regulation into everyday activities. 

In this episode I share:

• Everyday Routines for Self-Regulation
• Morning Meeting Strategies
• The Control Spot
• Transitioning in the Classroom

Related Episodes:

• Self-Regulation and Impulse Control in Kids ~ Ep. 22

Learn More:

• Social Emotional Learning
• Easy Self-Regulation Strategies
• Helping Children Regulate Their Emotions
• 8 Easy Impulse Control Activities for Kids

Self-Regulation SEL Resources:

• Impulse Control and Self-Regulation: A Social Emotional Learning Unit
• Social Emotional Curriculum: Support for Students with ADHD | Executive Function

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Connect with Zeba:

• Instagram – @kindergartencafe
• Facebook – @kindergartencafe
• Website – www.kindergartencafe.org
• Tik Tok – @kindergartencafe

Read the Transcript

[0:00] Hey, teacher friends, it’s Zeba from Kindergarten Cafe, and today I want to talk to you about teaching self-regulation skills through your everyday routines. Self-regulation has been one of my most played topics on the podcast and most read blog posts, so I thought why not get into a bit more specific area about how we can do it through our everyday classroom routines. So let’s dive in.

[0:27] Music. You’re listening to the Kindergarten Cafe podcast, where kindergarten teachers come to learn classroom-tested tips and tricks and teaching ideas they can use in their classroom right away. I’m Zeba, creator and founder of Kindergarten Cafe, and I help kindergarten teachers with everything they need from arrival to dismissal in order to save time, work smarter, not harder, and support students with engaging and purposeful lessons. I’m here to cheer you on through your successes and breakthroughs, and offer support and resources so you never have to feel stuck or alone. Ready to start saving time and reducing your stress all while using effective and purposeful lessons that students love? Let’s get started. Music.

[1:20] So I think we all know the value of teaching self-regulation for helping kids manage their emotions, manage their impulses throughout the day. But how can we do this through our everyday routines? Well, first, let me just say, we don’t want to only do this through our everyday routines. We want to make sure we’re explicitly teaching these things, these self-regulation strategies.

[1:41] But once we’ve taught them, we can use them throughout the day to help remind kids about the self-regulation routines, practice their self-regulation routines, and use them to help our kids self-regulate in the moment. Our first example is in morning meeting. When the kids are doing a greeting, there are some greetings that you can do to really practice self-regulation.

[2:05] So one of the greetings that I like to do is a voice volume greeting where you are practicing regulating your voice level. I’ll tell the kids the voice volume that I want them to have, like voice volume two would be loud and proud voice volume one is or sorry voice volume two is regular voice volume three is loud and proud voice volume one is a whisper and voice volume zero is non-verbal and I’ll tell them which one to have and they can use that to greet their neighbor another one we can do is speed greeting so they’re either greeting their neighbor really fast just right or very slow And I’ll tell them which one to do. And that’s a great connection to self-regulation lessons on listening to our body speeds and identifying if we’re going too fast, just right or too slow. But we also can do a deep breathing greeting and I like to use namaste as the greeting where they are saying namaste to the class and then we use the breathing ball that we have in the control spot and the kids open it up take a deep breath and then close it and we all say namaste to the person so that is a really good way to get the kids calm down but it’s a great way to practice those self-regulation strategies.

[3:20] Playing games at morning meeting is a really good way to practice these self-regulation strategies. Playing games like freeze dance, Simon Says, where they have to really control their impulses. If you’re looking for a really fun one, you blow some bubbles and have the kids not be allowed to pop them until you’ve said to go ahead. That’s a really hard one for them. Just really fun games. If you’re looking for more morning meeting greetings and activities. I have a podcast episode on a week of plans, morning meeting plans filled out for you. And I have all of my activities and games and greetings and all of that in a bundle on my Teachers Pay Teachers store.

[4:01] When kids are coming to the rug, this is a perfect opportunity in your routine to teach self-regulation. If you are noticing that kids are coming to the rug with their body energy too high, they’re chatty, wiggly, silly, whatever, encourage the kids to do five-finger breathing. Now, you would have already taught them this explicitly, but now this is a chance to practice that. So with five finger breathing, the kids trace their pointer finger up the pinky of the other hand and they breathe in. Then they trace it down the pinky and breathe out. Then they trace it up the ring finger and breathe in, trace it down and breathe out. And they continue for all five fingers. So they’ve had five deep breaths and then they’re all calm. While the kids are doing this, you’re doing it too. And when you’re done, your voice and body should be calm as well because they are going to echo your energy levels. If you do other deep breathing this is a great chance to have them practice that you can switch it up you could encourage them to do the bunny breathing where they’re breathing in quick three times and then out or this snake breathing where they’re breathing in.

[5:13] And breathing out like a snake or like a bear with their mouth open or like the lion with their mouth open really big there’s lots of deep breathing strategies that they can do I’ll include a freebie on this show notes here on the website of some breathing cards that you can take but you can do any of these as long as you’ve taught them then you can use this time when they’re coming to the rug and transitioning to practice them and that way when kids need them when they’re upset you’ve already taught and practiced them so we don’t ever when they’re upset want to be using that as an opportunity to teach them a new self-regulation strategy so this way they’ve already had that practice and instruction. So when they are upset, they can actually use it. You just might have to remind them, hey, remember we did the bunny breathing? Try that.

[6:02] Which brings me to the control spot. So we’ve talked about the control spot a bit. That’s what I call the area of my classroom, the calm corner. It’s hard for me to not call it the control spot. I’m so used to it. Calm corner, calm down corner, calm down spot, whatever you want to call it, quiet corner.

[6:20] It’s a place where kids can go and self-regulate. And it’s really important for every classroom to have this area. They need a place where they can go collect themselves. but that area in itself is teaching self-regulation.

[6:33] So in that area it should be quiet and calm away from the class where you can keep an eye on them. The kids should have a few things that can help them self-regulate but nothing that you haven’t taught them. So I like to have the breathing ball that like I said we do during morning meeting or the glitter jar where the kids shake the glitter, and they breathe in and out and watch the glitter settle to the bottom and once the glitter settles then their time in the control spot is done. You can also do that at morning meeting as a greeting as well. And that’s really it. The other thing I added this year was one of those, how do you describe this? You like swipe your hand over it and it moves the fabric one way.

[7:16] So it has one pattern, then you can swipe it the other way and it like changes colors. If anyone knows what that’s called let me know but some kind of like tactile thing for the kids to really calm down with but you really don’t need too much stuff you really don’t and you can make the glitter jar yourself you don’t need the breathing ball you’ve taught them deep breathing they can do that just fine they really just need that spot to self-regulate so through your morning meeting through transitions especially transitions to the rug and with your calm down corner you can really use those everyday classroom routines to help teach and practice self-regulation.

[7:55] And the kids really need that practice in order to be able to use the self-regulation

[8:02] strategies when they’re really upset because that’s not the time to teach them a new strategy. And if you’re looking for more support on self-regulation, I’ll put some older episodes that you guys have loved in the show notes in case you haven’t heard it or you’re looking for a refresher and they’re really good resources for you. So our quote of the day is, a kid said, a kid came out of the bathroom and said, there’s water all over the mirror. And I said, how did it get there? And he said, don’t ask me. Hmm, very suspicious. I don’t know. If there’s water all over the mirror, clearly someone did not have good self-regulation, which is why we need to teach self-regulation. So I hope you enjoyed this episode. It was quick, but had lots of strategies for you that you can take and use right now in your classroom. And so I hope to hear from you and hear how those go. And we’ll see you in the next episode.

[8:57] Music.

[9:03] For listening to the Kindergarten Cafe podcast. Be sure to check out the show notes for more information and resources, or just head straight to kindergartencafe.org for all the goodies. If you liked this episode, the best ways to show your support are to subscribe, leave a review, or send it to a friend. I’ll be back next week with even more kindergarten tips. See you then!