Character Education: Learning to Self-Regulate

Today we continued our learning on our "engine" levels. We reminded ourselves of what it looks like when our engines are running too high or too low. Now that we can recognize how fast our engine is running, we needed to learn how to alter it to get it to "just right". The theory behind altering our engine levels is by using our five senses. Of course, we couldn't include all of them, but this is what I've come up with :) I've created 2 bins to help students get to "just right".

The first is called the "Calm Down Bin", and it's filled with all kinds of things that will help us chill out a bit :) It includes the following:

• a soft teddy bear (to cuddle with)
• pad of paper and crayons (to relax and draw a picture)
• squeeze toy (balloon filled with sand, to get out any aggression)
• lavender-scented rice with gems (evoke our senses)
• mini windmill toy (blow out any excess energy) 
• glitter 'calm down' jar (shake it to get out any excess energy and watch the glitter settle)

The next one is called the "Rev Up Bin", and it's filled with a couple of things students can do to help peak their energy. Unfortunately we couldn't include pixie sticks or redbull, so this is what I came up with :D

• coffee grounds (no, not to eat, but to smell... it works!)
• paddle ball (to help us concentrate and get us moving a bit)
• the game "Perfection" (to wake us up a bit!) 

It was hard to think of things to put in the "rev up" bin, so if you have any suggestions, let me know! However, we feel as though students will most likely be needing the calm down bin, because engines tend to run pretty high in our classroom :\

The end goal is to have students understand what level their engine is running at and take the necessary steps to get them to "just right". However, we think it's probably more realistic to have students simply identify what level their engine is running at, and proceed to the right bin when directed by an adult. Maybe next year we can hope for that, but seeing as how it's the end of the year, we might not have enough time to get to that! We also reinforced that we shouldn't act like we're at a certain engine level just to go to a certain bin... we had some sleepy eyes after our lesson :P Feel free to use any of this language at home :) Some students are able to self-regulate better than others, and that depends on many external factors, but knowing the language and being "self-aware" is always a good thing!