Calming Corner Ideas for Kids

Learning emotional regulation is an important part of children’s development, but can be a tricky skill to master, specially for the littlest ones. Having a designated calm down corner in your house or classroom for kids to access when they are experiencing big emotions can be very helpful. Today I’m bringing you a few unique calming corner ideas, brought to you by some of our lovely customers who use our calm down corner printables in their homes.

What is a calming corner?

A calming corner or calm down corner is a designated place where children can process and talk about big feelings. It should be a calm, comfortable and inviting space, with child-friendly visuals and tools that will help emotional regulation, such as glitter bottles, sensory and fidget toys.

How do we use it?

It’s important to note that a calming corner is not a punishment for having big feelings. I don’t recommend sending children to the calming corner to deal with their emotions alone. Instead, this should be a safe space to relax and calm down for those tricky times.

When you first introduce a calming corner in your house or classroom, you should let the children know what it is for and explain that they can use that space whenever they need to calm their bodies and/or process tricky feelings.

Then you can walk with your child to the calming corner when the big feelings arise. Use this time to connect with your child and help them verbalise what they are feeling.

Having simple illustrations, books or visual cues here is a great way to help younger kids to identify and name their feelings. Our calm down corner printables are perfect for this!

Examples of a calming corner

Some of our lovely customers have sent me photos of the calm corners in their homes and you will see there are many ways to set them up.

The most important thing is to make the space welcoming and comfortable, as in the examples below. Pillows, blankets, a soft spot to sit on, are all great starting points.

It’s helpful to include a box or basket of calming tools that can help emotional regulation. Our calm down corner printables include calming strategies cards with a few ideas you can try with your child, like deep breathing, cuddling a toy, taking some time to do a quiet activity or talking about what made them upset.

Soft cuddly toys, books about feelings, simple puzzles, sensory bottles or fidget toys are all perfect to include in your calming basket. Just choose a few items that promote relaxation and cater to your child’s unique interests.

Our calm corner printables include an emotions poster that can be laminated or framed and hung on the wall with the removable emotion circles nearby, so that the child can change them as needed.

One of our customers turned our printables into a calm down book, which I though was very clever too. A great option if you don’t want to hang anything on the walls.

I hope these calming corner ideas inspired you to create your own calm space for your little ones. You can check out our calm corner printables below to see what’s included.