10 Tips to Create a Calm Corner in Your Classroom!
Easy tips to create a calm classroom for your students!
Tip 1: Fidget box 📦 Have a box of a variety of fidgets accessible for your students! Allow your students to go to the calm corner and use the fidgets when they need to self-regulate and calm down!
Tip 2: Bottles of water 📦 - Have small bottles of water available so that students can self regulate and calm down.
Tip 3: Blank sheets of paper 🙏 Have paper and crayons or markers available so that students can draw and process their emotions with art.
Tip 4: Headphones 🎧 - Noises in the classroom can be extremely distracting for students with special needs and autism. They may get distracted and overstimulated if they don’t have access to headphones. Make sure to provide your students with the option of over-the-ear headphones so that they can concentrate and not get over stimulated.
Tip 5: Mindfulness Exercises 💬 🙏 Practice mindfulness exercises throughout the day! In my class I turn off the lights and practice short mindfulness activities before transitioning to each new subject. This gives the students an opportunity to re-center, calm down, and get focused before learning something new. We have visual autism meditations available on our Youtube channel! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9MTNoVzgXU&t=13s
Tip 6: Posters with Calming strategies 🌌 Kids can use tips on these posters to help them self-regulate and calm down
Tip 7: Books and Magazines 📚
Tip 8: Lighting 💡 - add twinkly lights or soft lighting so that students can get a sensory break away from the fluorescent lights!
Tip 9: Rug, Bean Bag
Tip 10: Partition calm corner from rest of classroom⛺ Animated social stories designed for kids with autism here 👉 http://www.diverselearninghub.com
About me: Hi there! 👋 I'm Lauren! I am a special education teacher and masters student in Technology, Innovation, and Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. I came up with the idea of Diverse Learning Hub during my experience teaching in a cluster program while serving as a Teach For America corps member in Chicago. I had thirteen 6-8 grade students with autism and almost no materials. I created my own resources, instructional videos, and animated social stories for my students. I found that online content drastically improved engagement and learning among my students. I then decided to share the videos for other students to benefit from. Diverse Learning Hub has animated social stories, social story songs, functional life skills lessons, and interactive activities. Our goal is for students to use this site as a tool to learn social behaviors, life skills, and functional skills to help students thrive in the real world!