Page 5 Students First Wallace Gregg students practice sensory regulation through support intervention program Our new school counselor, Jamie Matthews, is implementing a new Check In procedure for our students here at Wallace Gregg. This system teaches students how to express their emotions/feelings. The Check Your Engine school-wide check-in is based off of the Alert Program, an empiricallysupported sensory regulation support intervention used all over the nation. The idea is that students will learn how to name their feelings, in terms of their imaginary engine speeds (thoughts, feelings, and actions). Students are given opportunities to identify how their engines are running throughout the day with the prompt, “How’s your engine running?” Students in grades K-6 can then check in silently using only a thumb gesture. From there, students, teachers, the school counselor, and administrators can clearly see which students are regulated and ready to learn, and which students might require some intervention to get ready for the classroom. How is your engine running today? Green (Thumbs up): happy, calm, focused and ready to learn Blue (Thumbs down): feeling sad, sick, tired or bored; moving slowly. Yellow (Sideways thumb): frustrated worried, excited, loss of control Green zone is the ideal engine speed for school: happy, calm, focused, ready to learn. *Thumbs up* Blue zone is classified as running low, feelings: sad, sick, tired, bored, moving slowly. *Thumbs down* Yellow zone includes restless energy: frustrated, worried, silly, excited, loss of some control. *Thumb sideways* During classroom guidance, students and teachers are taught different interventions and regulation strategies to either increase or decrease energy depending on the individual students’ needs. Some students might require more stimulation to move from Blue zone (low) to Green (just right). Others might require a calm down or movement break to get from Yellow (high) to Green (just right). 30 minutes of sensory regulation provides up to 4 hours of uninterrupted learning time! “This program is good because we are allowing students the opportunity to express their emotions. When I am in the hallways, cafeteria or throughout the building, I just “Check In” and the students will start displaying their thumb signals,” said Principal Debbie Donnelly. “This quiet approach helps us understand where our students are for the day. We can do check in throughout the day and the students are eager to explained what it means. This is great information that we can share with parents during a parent-teacher conference.”
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