Using Color Mending to build trust with students

Use case at a glance

Teacher: Ms. Krier, School Counselor

Location: Denver, CO

Grade Levels: 3rd through 8th

Timeline: 3 months

When I first connected with Ms. Krier, she told me that getting her students to do anything all year had been a struggle. As an experienced School Counselor, she had recently moved from Austin, TX to Denver, CO to work at a campus that serves 3rd through 8th grade students. “My students have precarious lives outside of school. They live in low socioeconomic environments, and the adults in their lives aren’t reliable - many are in and out of halfway homes, or prisons. These experiences have taught my students that adults can’t be trusted.”

Ms. Krier liked how the Color Mending process is self-led and was hopeful that her students could use coloring as a way to work through their emotions on their own. Her plan was to use Color Mending primarily in whole group settings.

The first time she used Color Mending with her class she used a step-by-step video Chelsea created to introduce coloring to her students. “My students were really into coloring. It seemed super helpful for them. We didn’t take enough time for them to analyze their own picture, and they still seemed to have individual takeaways.”

Throughout the three months, Ms. Krier began to notice that even if they didn’t have enough time to analyze each of their pictures, Color Mending was helping her students work emotions out. And, she began using Color Mending when she met with students one on one.

“One of my students had been refusing to talk to me when I met with her one one-on-one. There were clear signs that she had a lot of pain to process, so I asked her if she’d be open to a coloring activity, and told her she didn’t have to talk to me about anything. She easily agreed, which surprised me. When she was coloring, she was taking it very seriously. After she was done coloring, I showed her how to use the Color and Common Shapes Charts and let her lead herself through the interpretation. She wrote a lot. At the end, she told me she really liked it. It feels great for me to have a tool to use with her.”

A few days later this same student stopped by Ms. Krier’s office and opened up to her. “She just started to talk about everything. I attribute her being willing to talk to Color Mending. It helped her see that I have tools to help her work through the pain, that I’m here to support and teach her how to work through the pain, and helped build trust between her and I.”

As Ms. Krier continued to use Color Mending in whole group, her students began to be more curious about what each of the shapes and colors represented, a sign that they were enjoying the coloring process. “It’s been an effective tool to help each student build trust within themselves and trust with me. While some students are not interested in coloring, the majority are. And, those that do enjoy it take it seriously and want to learn more.”

Using Color Mending to help students process emotions

Use Case at a Glance

Teacher: Ms. Moog

Location: Twin Cities, MN

Grade Level: 3rd

Timeline: 3 months

Ms. Moog found Color Mending through TikTok and contacted Chelsea about using it with her students.

“My students are going through a lot. Developmentally they’re experiencing big emotions, they’re still feeling the effects of the lockdown during the pandemic, and most of them live in low socioeconomic environments. I’ve noticed the majority of my students can’t label their feelings which leads to them not feeling comfortable talking about emotions.”

When Ms. Moog found Color Mending she saw it as an engaging way to enhance the SEL work she was already doing with her students. She uses The Zones of Regulation and set up a Regulation Station for students to use as needed.

For using Color Mending with her students she decided to set aside 20 minutes each Friday to color as a whole group.

“Initially I was nervous about introducing this to my students. I wasn’t sure how they would respond, especially because it’s different than the other SEL strategies I use with them. I was surprised that I haven’t experienced a lot of resistance to it.”

After helping her students understand they could color anything they wanted like squares or swirls, and they didn’t need to color a picture, she noticed her students becoming more open to the practice.

“Some students are really into it, and others aren’t. We typically start with a breathing exercise, I have them write at the top of the paper if they want to color heavy or light emotions, and then they color. When we have time, I work 1:1 with students who want to interpret their colorings with the Color and Common Shapes Charts.”

The more the students colored, and the more they processed and compared how accurate the interpretations of their coloring were, the more excited they became about this classroom practice. Ms. Moog also observed how students who were feeling big emotions on their coloring day used the practice to work through emotions - from coloring intensely to ripping up the paper at the end of the coloring session.

Over the course of the 3 months, Ms. Moog started noticing shifts in some of her students.

“For my students who actively participate in Color Mending, they are able to process emotions better and have become better advocates for themselves. They now have the awareness of when they need to take a break and destress, which typically means taking 5 minutes to ‘color it out.’”

Using Color Mending with her students in the future, Ms. Moog has found ways to integrate it more into her classroom. She’s seen how taking 5 minutes to “color it out” or using it to help with mediation between students are effective classroom management strategies.