Calming Construction Boxes

Well in just 11 short days teachers in my district report back to school. This is our first year starting school before Labor Day so we lost 2 weeks of our traditional summer vacation. I'm frantically trying to finish up all the things on my to do list and finally completed this project. 

Last year, our school counselor introduced "Zones of Regulation" to my 2nd graders and I knew I wanted to do more to support this initiative. We also are a "Caring School Communities" school and integrate social and emotional learning into each day. 

At the beginning of the year we'll talk about these boxes and complete our booklets to use as a resource when students need to "take a break."

Here's a list of the materials I used, I made 3 boxes for my class:

• 3 Clear Plastic Pencil Boxes
• 3 Plastic Colored Rings
• Make It Blocks from Dollar Tree (Legos, Building Bricks)
• Mini Cups
• Hashtag Blocks
• Dough
• Straw Connectors

If you'd like to implement this in your own classroom, the materials are located here: Calming Construction Boxes. I included 6 task cards in each box.
I do not charge for the materials I create, however I do accept donations via Paypal, CashApp and TpT Class Fund. 

Cash App: $teachingoasis

TpT Class Fund

Ingenuity Lab

I'm two weeks into my summer vacation and I've just about completed my first summer project. Last week, I sat in on interviews for a 7th teammate and my principal asked candidates a very important question. "What are some ways you will accommodate for learning and emotional gaps that students may show?" You see, this particular group of rising 2nd graders had their Kindergarten year cut short by the pandemic and then could have possibly spent their entire first grade year in the virtual learning setting. I'm already  looking to be either  trained in Youth Mental First Aid or Trauma Informed Care but it's going to take much more than that to meet these students where they are. 

One idea I want to implement is an Ingenuity Lab (ingenuity is one of our school system's core values). I decided I wanted to start our days off with creativity. So instead of traditional morning work, students will come in and grab their bin for the week and complete that day's challenge. This is very similar to morning tubs or morning missions as I've also seen them called. 

I made 24 bins. 2 of each type of material. I didn't have to purchase much, I already had most of the supplies I wanted to use on hand.  In each bin I included a ring of 7 task cards. 4 picture cards and 3 three-dimensional shape cards. I could have used more consumable materials like index cards, tape, craft sticks, pipe cleaners, etc. however I wanted something low maintenance considering the students will use these each day. 
Here's a list of the materials I used:

• 24 containers (plastic pencil boxes would be perfect)
• 24 plastic colored rings (metal rings could also work)
• mini cups
• puffy snowflakes
• straw constructor
• creative flakes
• hashtag blocks
• dough & toothpicks
• linking cubes
• foam base 10 blocks
• magnetic shapes
• wooden planks
• foam pattern blocks
• building bricks (Dollar Tree has Make-It Blocks that would also be perfect for this)

If you'd like to implement this in your own classroom, the materials are located here: Ingenuity Lab.