Wednesday, October 17, 2012

Personal Space

Along the same lines as controlling our volcanoes is being aware of personal space.
Another great book by Julia Cook and Carrie Hartman is called Personal Space Camp.
In the story, Principal Goodkid guides a group of kids through a variety of activities that help them become aware of personal space.  One of the ideas I adapted for my classroom is putting a hula hoop around a child to help him/her notice his/her personal space.  I found small hula hoops that I keep in a handy location near the class rug.  When a child is losing control of his/her body and bothering others I put the hula hoop around him/her and say, "This is your space, you need to stay inside this space and no one else can come inside your space."  This also works for kids who have a hard time with others getting too close to them.
So far it's really helping with a physical model of how much space a person should take on the rug.
I hope this helps anyone else dealing with space issues.