So now that I’ve covered the basics of cozy corners, I wanted to reflect on my personal experience. I’ve had the opportunity of implementing a cozy corners in 3 different educational spaces:

  1. An outdoor preschool
  2. A resource room
  3. In personal caregiving

Outdoor Preschool

Though an outdoor preschool does not have a cozy corner in a classroom persay, there are opportunities to create “safer” places outside. As mentioned last week in my post, Outdoor Cozy Corners can look like:

  • Creating morning check in boards for students to assess how they are feelings each morning
  • Creating a kitty corner, which was an enclosure made of sticks and ferns that were found on the ground.
  • Taught meditation to the students, that they could use when they were feeling big feelings
  • Ran down the big hill screaming like birds to get out any “sticky” feelings
  • Read stories to children while they sat in my lap
  • Used homemade stress balls and sat by the water with a child to take space
Clothing Corner. Taken at VNS
Kitty Corner. Taken at VNS

Resource Room

Another space where I saw a cozy corner space being used was at my practicum in my undergrad degree in a resource classroom.

  1. This particular classroom, had a de-escalation room that was padded, had stemming tools, and some comforting materials. To preface, this classroom was called a high-incident room that had 10 EAs, two resource teachers and 12 students with complex additional support needs that were not be integrated into mainstream classrooms. Below I’ve included an image that looks similar to the one that was used in the classroom. I would also like to mention that the practice of placing or leaving a child in a padded room to calm down, DOES NOT align with my view and ethics, however this was a practice used in this school.
Padded Room, By https://billingsgazette.com

If you want to hear other arguments about the dangers or cautions of using padded rooms for behaviour escalation, I would urge you to check out this article: https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/seclusion-rooms-1.3264834

2. The second space that was used in this classroom for de-escalation was a hanging hammock with stemming tools. Unlike the padded room, I LOVE the use of a hanging hammock for children who need comfort, privacy, or a tight huge. The argument for using hanging chairs for children with Autism in particular is that the cocoon like swinging motion helps children feel more calm and less stimulated (La Siesta, 2020).

Hanging Hammock. By https://www.hanging-chairs.net/kids-hanging-chair/hanging-chairs-autistic-kids/

Personal Caregiving

The last space I have had the opportunity of implementing a cozy corner is in my own professional work as a caregiver for a young man with additional support needs. To learn more about him and his journey with mobility, check out my last post (Week 7: Adaptive Technology ). Though, his room was considered a “calm” space for him, we wanted a particular spot in his room dedicated to that de-escalation. Hence, the red cozy chair…

This cozy chair, was filled with all of his favourite things: Snoopy, his chocolate milk, cozy blanket, his strings, NO WHEELCHAIR or harness = freedom.

Red Cozy Chair. (I have permission for this image)

In essence, the central argument I wanted to make with this post is that a cozy corner does not need to exist only in a classroom corner. They can be implemented pretty much anywhere, as long as they are co-created, feel safe, and have specific regulations/rules.