At Dream Childcare, we believe that helping children understand and manage their emotions is an important part of their development. We use the Zones of Regulation approach to help children recognise how they are feeling, understand that all emotions are okay, and learn strategies that can help them feel ready to learn, play and connect with others.

To make the Zones meaningful and memorable for our children, we have created our own special Dream Childcare characters. Each character represents a different zone, helping children build a familiar association between the character, the colour and how they may be feeling.

? Gracie Grasshopper – Green Zone
Gracie represents feelings such as happy, calm, focused and ready to learn. Green is our comfortable zone, where children may feel settled and ready to enjoy their day.

? Ziggy Zebra – Yellow Zone
Ziggy helps children recognise feelings such as excited, frustrated, worried, silly or restless. These feelings can be bigger and may mean that we need to use a strategy to help ourselves feel more in control.

? Bella Bear – Blue Zone
Bella represents feelings such as sad, tired, poorly, disappointed or low in energy. We encourage children to recognise these feelings and understand what they might need to help themselves feel better.

? Rory Dragon – Red Zone
Rory represents big, powerful feelings such as anger, fear, panic or feeling out of control. We teach children that being in the Red Zone is not "being naughty" — it is a signal that they need support and strategies to help them regulate.

? All Zones Are Okay

An important part of our approach is teaching children that there is no "bad" zone. We all experience different emotions throughout the day, and it is completely normal to move between zones.

Our aim is not to keep children in the Green Zone all of the time, but to help them recognise their emotions, communicate how they feel and develop appropriate strategies to regulate themselves.

Through everyday conversations, stories, play, visual resources and supportive interactions, our practitioners encourage children to use the Zones language naturally.

You might hear us asking:

“Which zone do you think you're in?”
“I wonder what Gracie, Ziggy, Bella or Rory might be feeling?”
“What could help you right now?”

By giving children the language and confidence to talk about their emotions, we help them develop self-awareness, emotional literacy, resilience and positive relationships — skills that will support them throughout childhood and beyond.

At Dream Childcare, we don't expect little people to have little feelings. We help them understand their big ones. ?