Evidence Overview: 

During my internship at State Street Elementary School, I observed that many of the students struggled with appropriate social behavior. My supervisor worked closely with those students to help them improve their behavior in school, at home, and in the community. The zones of regulation were constantly reinforced teaching them how to self-regulate their emotions and impulses. There were 4 zones such as the red, blue, green, and yellow zone. The red zone is for extremely intense emotions. The blue zone is for a low state of alertness. The green zone is for a calm and alert state. The yellow zone is for elevated emotions. Once the children went over their zones and described how they were feeling, they would go over different coping methods to get them back into the green zone such as deep breathing, counting to 10, drawing a picture, thinking of a happy place, or to smile. I observed my supervisor in these one on one sessions and eventually was fortunate enough to work with some children on my own. I would start every session by going over the zones and how to cope and then spent a majority of the time going over behaving appropriately. I used everything I observed when watching my supervisor and watching the children interact to help me put together a board game called Friendship Land. 

 

Friendship Land was designed around Candy Land in order to teach kids appropriate social behavior. I used the characters from the DreamWorks movie Trolls such as Patient Poppy, Helpful DJ Suki, and Honest Biggie as the lands in the board game. I made 50 note cards that kids needed to answer in order to move spaces forward on the board game. There are questions such as "How can you be a good listener? Move 3 spaces forward." or "Practice taking deep breaths. Move 2 spaces forward." Once the kids answer the question they can move forward on the game. I created these questions to help kids learned social appropriateness and how to handle their feelings. I wanted to make a game that could not only help the children learn but allow them to have some fun with it. I provided some pictures of the game and a picture with examples of some of the questions that were asked in the game. Hope you enjoy the game as much I do!