Our preschool program adopted the Zones of Regulation this year. Our teachers have embedded content similar to the zones for a while but this year it’s being explicitly taught building-wide. Amber, one of the SLPs I work with, came up with the idea of using the book, Pete the Cat and His Magic Sunglasses to practice Zones this week. I didn’t know the book before using it, but it matched the zones perfectly! I whipped up a few visuals and loved this lesson!
Zones of Regulation is a program developed to address sensory systems and self-regulation.
“The Zones is a systematic, cognitive behavior approach used to teach self-regulation by categorizing all the different ways we feel and states of alertness we experience into four concrete zones. The Zones curriculum provides strategies to teach students to become more aware of, and independent in controlling their emotions and impulses, managing their sensory needs, and improving their ability to problem solve conflicts. By addressing underlying deficits in emotional and sensory regulation, executive functions, and social cognition, the curriculum is designed to help move students toward independent regulation. The Zones of Regulation incorporates Social Thinking® (www.socialthinking.com) concepts and numerous visuals to teach students to identify their feelings/level of alertness, understand how their behavior impacts those around them, and learn what tools they can use to manage their feelings and states.”
In the Pete the Cat Sunglasses book, Pete starts off feeling sad (blue zone) until the toad gives him magic sunglasses that make him feel happy (green zone). Pete continues on and finds a frustrated turtle (yellow zone), angry squirrel (red zone), and sad alligator (blue zone). He helps each one with the magic sunglasses. After we read the book we talked about strategies for getting back to green using this visual from BCBAmazing on TpT.
I won’t be sharing the materials I made for Zones of Regulation or Pete the Cat because both of the copyright and trademark rules associated with them. You can use google image search to make your own pretty easily!
How do you incorporate and teach Zones of Regulation?
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