It’s no secret that early childhood teachers everywhere have seen changes in their students’ behavior since the pandemic began.

And because of that, teaching young children is now more challenging than it ever was. 

Kids are bouncing off the walls and full of energy… sometimes, a little bit too much energy if I’m being honest.

However, this doesn’t have to be a perpetual issue in your classroom.

I’m here, and I’m about to share an easy way  to help reduce your preschool behavioral woes.

Yes friends, today, I’ll be sharing one simple solution to help improve behavior in your classroom by creating a calming and soothing environment your students can thrive in.

All right, are you ready?

Let’s dive in!

Story Time!

When I first started teaching, I thought that using bright primary colors in the classroom was what you were supposed to do.

The consensus at the time was that the color white translated to sterile and boring, and bright colors made us happy.  

But over time I started to change my mindset around using too many colors in the classroom.

A few things happened that led to that change.

The first was when a colleague stepped into my classroom one day and then quickly left. I asked her what was wrong, and she said my classroom gave her a headache because there were too many “loud” colors.

Her reaction planted a tiny little seed in the back of my mind.

The second thing that happened had to do with my bulletin boards. I detest changing them out regularly, so one day, I decided to cover all my bulletin boards with black fabric and use the exact same border for all of them.

When I made that shift I noticed that I felt calmer in the classroom, and that got me wondering if it had the same effect on my students.

After that experience, I decided to switch out all my colored bins. I swapped them out for clear ones, and noticed a huge difference in my classroom right away with noise and behavior.

That led me to getting a solid, light green classroom rug instead of one of those brightly colored rugs that make you dizzy just looking at them.

And that made an even bigger impact on me and my students.

In the end, making these small changes to my classroom led to a calmer learning environment and helped me with classroom behavior management.

How to Create a Calm Classroom

Early Childhood Facts You Need to Know

Here are four early childhood facts you can use if you’re curious about how to make simple changes in your classroom to prevent bad behaviors.

Fact #1:

Most young children have short attention spans and are easily distracted.

Fact #2:

The ability to self-regulate and control one’s impulses and feelings is not fully formed until humans are more than twenty years old!

Fact #3:

When young children become overstimulated, they act out.

Some may have difficulty paying attention and focusing when they’re visually overstimulated.

And others may become overstimulated by a noisy environment.

When children are overstimulated and overwhelmed, they’re more likely to become aggressive, disruptive, run around the room, or even cry.

Fact #4:

There’s an entire body of research that points to the classroom environment as a factor that can contribute to overstimulation.

Creating a Calm Classroom Leads to a Better Learning Environment

Now that we’ve learned our facts, let’s look at ways we can help the young children in our classrooms focus more and learn to self-regulate.

Let’s Talk Colors

A few decades ago, we used to think that since children seem more attracted to bright, bold, primary colors, we should decorate their environment in those colors.  

This theory was based on the idea that providing sensory stimuli during early stages of development was important. However, using bright, bold colors in the classroom environment is an oversimplification of this idea.

Instead, these bright colors can compete for the students’ attention and visually bombard them, resulting in overstimulation.

In fact, one study even showed that children in heavily decorated classrooms achieved lower overall assessment scores compared to children in more sparsely decorated classrooms.

So, what does this all mean for you and your classroom? It just means you should carefully consider the colors you use in it.

What About Light?

Have you ever come home from a day of teaching with your eyes feeling overly fatigued? Well then, I’ve got news for you: Your eyes may be tired from all the fluorescent lights in your classroom.

You see, bright fluorescent lights can affect young children’s mood and behavior. So, what can you do about the lighting in your classroom? After all, you can’t teach in the dark!

Here are a few tips:

• If you have windows in your classroom, use as much natural light as you can.
• You can also use cool light diffuser panels which attach to most school fluorescent lights with magnets. They diffuse the light and make it less harsh.
• Another way you can tone the lights in your classroom down is by using lamps and twinkle lights to light your room instead of the fluorescent overhead lights (if you’re allowed, of course).

Natural Elements Can Help

There’s no question that young children spend less time outdoors now than they have before. Instead of playing outside, they’re spending more and more time indoors on electronic devices.

This lack of time spent outside coupled with increased screen time can stunt children’s development of crucial social-emotional skills, such as empathy.

It can also negatively impact their gross and fine motor skill development because their muscles and bodies aren’t getting the exercise necessary for healthy development.

Nature can help counterbalance the negative effects of too much screen time.

Bringing the outdoors into the classroom environment is good for all children. It can be especially beneficial for children in urban settings who may not have access to nature or those who lack opportunities to explore the outdoors in their home lives.

Plus, keeping up with the theme, it’s a great way to create a calm classroom environment.

I discuss all of this (and some objections you might hear) in more depth in the episode above, so make sure to watch it.