Updated Cool Down Corner and Magic blankets

In my  previous post I talked about the cool down corner in my room.  Just to review when my children get upset I walk them over to the cool down corner and tell them to sit there and calm down and that I will come and talk with them when they do.  I am trying to teach them to go to the cool down corner on the own when they are upset but right now few of them do it. This is what our cool down corner looks like:

It is in a corner of the room and has a book shelf in front of it to give it a more private feel but it is still easy to supervise.  The two large cushions came off of my couch. You could easily make your own using fabric and foam from a craft store.  The small cushions are chair cushions purchased from Walmart.  The blue bin has several calm down items in it.  It has two calming jars.  A pair of noise canceling head phones.  A few stress balls and squish balls.  It also has two pin wheels that can be used to help children to learn deep breathing. Something else I keep in the cool down corner even though it isn't pictured is one of our Magic Blankets.

It is a weighted blanket but we call it a magic blanket because it works so well at calming the kids down and helping them get to sleep at naptime.  The one pictured is one I made.  It isn't very difficult if you have a sewing machine.  The materials to make this one cost me around $24. It is a two pound blanket for each additional two pounds of weighted material it cost an extra $10.  I am thinking of making some to sell on etsy or some where.  If you are interested send me an email by clicking here.

Sensery tub Tuesday- Baking soda and Vinigar Volcanos

Last week we read the book when Sophie Gets angry.  We talked about what we do when we get angry.  One of the pages in the book compares Sophie to a volcano so we made aking soda and vinegar volcanos.  The kids loved to watch the mixture flow out of the test tubes we used.

Fabulous Food Friday- Animal Cracker Cages

I haven't been on here to update my blog in a while so I am putting my Fabulous food Friday activity from two weeks ago on here now.   We were reading the book Zoo Looking by Mem Fox.  Our theme for the week was of course Zoo Animals.  The kids had a pretty fun week.  Thursday the children brought in there stuffed animals from home and we made a pretend zoo.  Friday for Fabulous food Friday we built cages for our animal crackers.

 

As you can see from the pictures our cages were built out of marshmallow and pretzels.  The first picture is my creation the second is one of the children's.