Having spent the majority of my schooling in two of the most competitive school districts, I have been surrounded by students taking part in academic competitions, having a multitude of extracurriculars, and always aiming for straight As.
This unknowingly pressured me to achieve the best grades and participate in after school activities as much as possible. Managing all of this has always been challenging.
Continuously spending time in this environment, sometimes I find it hard for me to take a break, and when I try to do so, I don’t completely know how to take one.
Maintaining this balance is crucial, so this is a problem that should be targeted from a young age. If children don’t learn the skills required to take breaks and destress, they will have trouble as they grow up.
It is necessary that we teach them ways to move their focus away from anything that could be negatively affecting them, and this is what I set out to do in my Girl Scouts Gold Award Project.
I decided to directly act on this issue by contacting schools in the West-Windsor Plainsboro Regional School District, and the principal of J.V.B Wicoff Elementary School, Maureen Cook, was extremely interested in pursuing this problem and providing a resource to the students of the school to help fix it.
The school contains around 270 kids in total, all of them ranging from kindergarteners to third graders. Working with each other, we came up with the idea of creating a sensory-emotional learning room for students to go to whenever they needed to take a break, the room that is now called the Comfort Cove.
The Comfort Cove is an area dedicated to mental wellness and is a resource open to the students in Wicoff. In the Comfort Cove, students can choose to spend some time in one or more of its three sections: the Art Hub, the Reading Nook, and the Sensory Corner. Each of these sections are devoted to separate de-stressing methods.
As the name implies, the Art Hub is focused on giving kids the opportunity to experiment with their creativity, and the main ways they can do so are through painting and scratch art. A set of scratch art pads are kept for students to use, allowing them to shift their focus away from whatever was previously affecting them to what they will soon create.
It is a “magical” tool, and every kid that I have seen play with it has found it a nice distraction. Along with scratch art, there are different paint color options, some paintbrushes, an easel, and some small clipboards. Painting gives students a way to think about what makes them happy and put it on paper, putting them in a sort of different “world” than the one that is currently disturbing them.
The second section in the room is the Reading Nook, a comfortable, cozy, relaxing area where kids can use their imagination to travel to a new place. There are a variety of genres the students can choose from, some of them being fantasy, realistic fiction, and A Little SPOT of Emotion books. Reading will help the students take a break and will also help their literary skills.
Last is the Sensory Corner, where students can focus on breathing techniques and activating mainly their sense of touch. In this corner, students can play with fidget toys, virtual Google Slide, choose from a variety of flexible seating, and play with kinetic sand.
The fidget toys in this room have many different uses. There is a breathing board and a breathing tube, which students can use to calm down and regulate their emotions. There are also sliders and gel emotion friends which the kids can use to understand their own feelings and learn that others can also experience the same. Students are also provided with many other sensory toys, including soft putty, and gel aquariums.
These fidget toys are wonderful outlets for any feelings like anxiety or anger that need to be released and with this, they help improve both focus and attention, contributing to the students being able to do better once they go back to class.
In the Comfort Cove, a virtual Google Slide is kept for students to use if they feel like doing yoga, listening to music, or doing some meditation, all of which have their own benefits. Yoga and meditation help manage stress and reduce the tendency to take impulsive actions. Listening to music helps in stimulating the brain and improving concentration, and can be a good way to transition from negative feelings to more positive ones.
The flexible seating in this area is especially beneficial to students, and is fun for them to choose from. It gives them a choice and lets them decide what works best for them, along with giving them a comfortable space to use the tools provided. It is also good for the physical health of students, with some seating increasing blood flow and helping core strength, both which lead to better behavior and academic performance.
The last resource available in this room is a kinetic sand table. This is a resource recommended by many teachers in the school, and has proved to be helpful in the Comfort Cove. It is an enjoyable activity for students, helping them calm down while enhancing their tactile senses.
Creating a space like this was extremely rewarding, but it came with its difficulties.
In planning this project, I knew it would be a costly one. Along with all of the resources we bought for the room, we also needed to give it a newer look, which we did by painting the walls.
Luckily, the school was able to provide some books and pay for most of the materials, but money still had to be put in for wall decorations, paint, some books, and appropriate resources for each corner.
To pay for this, I decided to do a fundraiser, in which I made customized t-shirts for a Holi event happening in my community. I introduced limited designs for people to choose from, and my parents and I spread the word about the shirts. Some orders started coming in, but initially we only received four orders.
After this we had to remind others about the fundraiser in community group chats, and people requested more options. We incorporated this feedback and added more room for customization. Finally, we got 22 orders, which were enough to pay for many of our expenses.
I had planned to start the project at the beginning of my summer break, but we experienced many difficulties with accessing the room. It was previously used for storage and filled with old furniture and materials. This led to me having to postpone my project a little, since school was still in session and the staff was busy. Although in the beginning I could work on virtual tasks, once those were done I had to get in the room and start working.
These problems continued throughout the summer due to the HVAC system of the school having to be changed. Because of this, there were times where the power was out, or when we weren’t allowed to enter the school, which further delayed my project, but soon, with easy communication with the staff, I was able to solve this!
In the time I had, I decided to visit different stores and shop for wall decorations, and make custom wall decals for each section in the room. I also spent this time making labels for all of the genres in the bookshelf.
Luckily, I was able to find solutions to each problem I ran into, and the staff at Wicoff tried their best to help me as much as possible, resulting in a successful project that has reached many students at the school, and which will also hopefully reach others in our community.
As per a survey I took, students have learned to take breaks when they are upset and have found specific methods to feel better. For example, one student found that it helps them to calm down when they jump around the room on stepping stones. Teachers have also found the room helpful, some liking how it “appeals to different needs of students” and others liking how it gives students “a place to feel without a counselor or teacher trying to push it out of them.”
I feel incredibly proud of what this project has developed to, and am so happy that students at Wicoff now have an effective resource to support them through their current and future endeavors.
I am also extremely thankful to all who have helped me in this project, including my parents and sister, who have put in an immense amount of time and who have supported me every step of the way, my project advisor, Ms. Maureen Cook, who has given me this wonderful opportunity and entrusted me with the resource, my troop leader, who has guided me through any confusion I have felt, and the counselors and teachers who have shared their valuable suggestions about the project. The Comfort Cove wouldn’t be what it is without them, and I am so happy that together, we have created such an amazing, impactful area.
Aanya Mangla created a sensory-emotional learning room—the Comfort Cove — in Wicoff School in Plainsboro as part of her Girl Schout Gold Award project.,
