My school is the pilot for zones of regulation the district. At first I liked it because it was more individual. But now not so much. We have gone classroom and school wide. The kids go to this zone in the classroom to fidget whenever they can no longer learn with the understanding that the work still needs to be done. We have students going there constantly. A revolving door. It drives me crazy. I'm constantly repeating directions and catching kids up. I'm told that the goal is to have self regulation and less drama and trama while I teach. I'm told zones of regulation is run perfectly in my room. I'm model! I hate it! Does anyone else have this program? Suggestions? Am I too old fashioned?
I like zones of regulation. It has really helped many of my students with autism. However, in a mainstream class I'm not sure its necessary to use it for everyone.
I am a special education classroom teacher. I do not have this nor have I actually heard of it until today (yay...I like to learn about new teacher practices.). Anyways, I have a fun rug for downtimes, early finishers, and free-time. I do teach academic groups on the fun rug as well.
I've had a cool down corner in the past and ran into the same issue. No solution really for me to suggest, but I now tell students about the corner as needed individually.
My thoughts exactly! I see individual benefits. But it's almost a game for the main streamers and thus defeating the purpose for the others.
I have similar but I often suggested the area, not them. At home I called it the 'crabby carpet'. LOL And it could travel with us. Even to the grocery store.
We use Zones as a Tier 2/3 resource, but not as a gen ed practice. I can’t even picture that working. I have 2 students in my class that use it and are able to go to their zone area when frustrated to deescalate. At the beginning of the year I had some typical kids who caught on and tried to start saying “im going to go take a break” when asked to do something. We quickly had to put a stop to it.
I have a “don’t bug me” area. It is a desk just off to the side of the regular desks. I never made any mention of it, and I just let the kids figure out how to use it. I do have signs up explaining the procedure for using it. I have 8th graders, so they are better at self-regulating and figuring out how things can help them.
