Ms. Truax, K-8 school counselor, was in Mrs. Brown’s kindergarten class for a fun game of Bingo to help reenforce the social-emotional skills they have been learning about with the Zones of Regulation!
“The Zones of Regulation is a social-emotional learning program being used in Avon for grades K-4 that teaches children a universal language to identify feelings and to emotionally regulate,” explained Ms. Truax. Each of four colors – red, yellow, green, and blue – represent the zones used to correspond to feelings or states as well as to the likely behavior. In the Red Zone, for example, a person may feel angry, terrified, or elated, and may exhibit behaviors such as yelling, hitting, or being out of control. In the Yellow Zone, a person may feel frustrated, worried, silly/wiggly, or excited, and may exhibit some loss of control. The Green Zone is associated with feeling happy, calm, and focused, or ready to learn. The Blue Zone is associated with feeling sad, sick, tired, or bored, with the individual moving slowly.
While the zones cover a normal range of emotions, different situations may call for behaviors to be accepted, regulated or redirected. For example, feeling silly or excited (the Yellow Zone) is fine on the playground but would be disruptive in the library and should be reined in.
Mrs. Brown’s students have become well-versed in identifying the zones as well as the facial expressions that represent different emotions. In the Bingo game, Ms. Truax held up a picture of one of the facial expressions so students could name it as well as the zone it belonged to, and then find the matching face on their paper to color it in. When someone reached three in a row, they called out “Bingo” and received a sticker; when all were filled in, they called out “Zone!” and received another sticker!