Stock your calm-down corner with a few meaningful toys and tools.

The Magic of Me: My Magical Choices (Cummings/Svoboda): This book reminds kids that they can make choices about their behavior, and gives helpful suggestions for making good ones.

Little Monkey is having a rough day, but he uses simple coping strategies to feel better again.

Little Monkey Calms Down (Dahl): This cute book is ideal for the pre-K set.

Fortunately, a bird named Brodhi is on hand to teach her the secret to finding her calm. But she also has a nasty temper when things go wrong.

The Secret to Clara’s Calm (Levitt/Bondy): Clara is cheerful and fun, popular with the other kids.

Kids can sort through to find one that works for them.

Mindful Kids: 50 Mindfulness Activities: Not a book, but a set of 50 cards containing mindfulness and meditation activities.

This rhyming book for young readers helps them understand that anger is natural, but we need to find safe ways to handle it.

When I Am Angry (Gordon): Anger is a powerful emotion.

I’m overwhelmed.”) It acknowledges those big feelings, and provides thoughtful suggestions for overcoming them.

Find Your Calm (Garcia/Pineda): The narrator in this book does a great job describing what anxiety can feel like (“My body feels like it’s moving in every different direction.

Add a few to your classroom library to use for read-alouds, and keep them in your calm-down corner for kids to look at when they need them most. There are so many amazing books focused on helping kids with social emotional learning. The cheerful colors and truly helpful ideas are bound to be popular with students. Here’s another option we really like: the Calm Down Cloud pack from Oriental Trading.

Just a heads up, WeAreTeachers may collect a share of sales from the links on this page. Here’s how to build and effectively use one in your classroom. A calm-down corner, sometimes known as a peace corner or even Antarctica (a place far away from everyone else), gives kids a place to recenter and refocus so they can join the learning again. Sometimes, it’s all too much, and the result can be bad behavior. Teachers recognize that kids, like adults, have a lot of feelings and emotions to process throughout the day. Hernandez asks the rest of the reading group to read silently, then quietly leads James to the classroom calm-down corner.Ĭalm-down corners are a popular tool in classrooms these days and with good reason.

He throws the book on the floor and shouts that everyone hates him, and he hates them too. After the third time he makes a mistake and is gently corrected by his teacher, Ms. Now, it’s time for reading, his most challenging subject. At recess, he fell and skinned his knee, and other kids made fun of him for crying a little. He overslept and was late to school, missing out on breakfast. 1.Second-grader James is having a rough day. Have we convinced you? If you want to give it a try, these are some of the best choices for flexible seating on the market today. Don’t be afraid to assign seats: Even with flexible seating, you can assign spots, partners, or even seats.After this assignment? After lunch? Tomorrow? Set parameters for choosing again: If a child has to move seats, let them know when they can have their choice again.Follow through: If you set the expectation that students are going to use flexible seating to be more focused and productive, remind students of the expectations, then move students the moment you see them not meeting expectations so they don’t disrupt even more.Talk through choices: Especially if a student chooses a seat that’s not the right one for them (maybe they can’t handle the wiggly stool today), focus on choosing the best seat, not the trouble the current seat is causing.Treat it like a procedure: Before you set out the seating options, explain the rules, then expect to review them often.Once you’re committed, take these tips to make it work: Heidi Songs/flexible seating example via

Comfy corner listening center