1st & 2nd Accepting Differences

For the last rotation of classroom guidance, my co-counselor Cassandra wanted to focus on transition, fitting in, and accepting self and others for who they are. Two books she felt did an excellent job doing this (and I agree!) are Perfectly You and Ellison the Elephant. In the lesson, these topics were discussed, the stories were read, and students had the opportunity to demonstrate their comprehension of the activities while sharing with others what makes them special and unique.

1st grade

Written by one of my favorite Julia's! :) This book covers a wide area of topics for discussion; including, loving your body, eating healthy foods, exercise, accepting yourself, try new things, being positive, the importance of talking to others you trust when you need support, believing in yourself, and being kind to others. After reading the story and having a group discussion, students completed the shield of self-confidence from Small Group Counseling for Children. Students were explained that a shield was used to protect knight's in battle in the same way that believing in yourself and being confident protects you from mean things others might say or do.

2nd grade

This story focused on fitting in and acceptance in yourself and others. After reading this story and having a group discussion, students completed the my personal rainbow activity sheet from That's My Story Too! Students had the chance to see that everyone's rainbow was different and beautiful, much like all of us are different and special in our own way.

K-2 Friendship

K-2 students have just completed a guidance rotation on friendship. First they discussed what it means to be a friend and how they are friendly to others. They then read a story about friendship (below are the books read to each grade level) and as a reflection discussed and participated in the activity, Words that Help or Hurt Friendships from the Creative Small Groups for Grades K-5 activity book.

Books on Friendship:

K- How to be a Friend

1st grade- The Worst Best Friend

2nd grade- Enemy Pie

Enemy Pie is also available online with graphics at http://www.storylineonline.net/!



4th & 5th grade Friendship

4th graders learned the do's and don'ts regarding apologies and how to give a sincere apology from the book Sorry by Trudy Ludwig. In this activity, students discussed the importance of apologies, how to give and receive one, and how actions speak louder than words-showing someone your sorry rather than just saying it. Discussion questions and extension activities were used from the book, That's My Story Too! In this activity students also had the opportunity to share their likes with classmates to build relationships. They also identified qualities they look for in a friend and qualities they possess that make them a good friend.

5th grades participated in a discussion on friendship/peer relationships and did a skit from the book, Skits, Raps, and Poems For the School Counselor. In this activity, students discussed the difficulty in getting along with others, what kinds of problems they have with friends, and the different ways they attempt to resolve their conflicts. In the skit, extreme behaviors/personalities are presented that are sometimes present in friendship issues: aggression, tattling, jealousy/control, talkative, and low self-esteem/confidence. As a reflection, students had the opportunity to share how they would handle different situations where friends (or themselves) felt or displayed these adverse behaviors.  

3rd grade Career Awareness

A few weeks ago (before I began STAR testing!) I did a unit on Career Awareness. I always try to do it after we have Career Day to allow students to gain a sense of different careers before we start talking about them in classroom guidance. For third grade this year, we created Career Sundaes from the book Counselors' Pages and explored the website http://www.bridges.com/. To create the Career Sundae, students identified a job they might like to have when they were finished with school and wrote it on the dish, they identified the education needed for that job and put it on the whipped cream, 3 duties/responsibilities were listed on the ice cream scoops, 3 things that you need to do well to do the job were listed on the hot fudge, and 3 tools needed for the job were listed on the strawberries. This was a wonderful, hands on activity that allowed students to think about their future and more importantly make the connection between how what they are doing now in school is linked to their future career. Bridges.com/Paws in Jobland is a wonderful website that allows students to gain information on different jobs/careers, career clusters, and play an interactive game/quiz to determine what jobs they might like based on their interests and skills.

A sample of Career Sundaes made by 3rd graders



A snapshot of the places to explore in Jobland



                                                

"Baking Up" School Success with 2nd graders

In 2nd grade this week, my co-counselor Cassandra has focused on school success. To do this, she used an activity from the Puzzle Pieces book (LOVE Diane Senn!) called, Baking Up School Success. During this interactive lesson, students identified the skills/ingredients needed to be successful in school (listening, participating, using time wisely, following classroom procedure, completing assignments, etc.). As a reflection to ensure comprehension from the lesson, students had the opportunity to draw/write the skills/ingredients they need to have to be successful in school. Students also shared the ingredient(s) they need to work on/stock up in their pantry, to be more successful in school.

K & 1 Academic Success

Kindergarten

Howard B. Wigglebottom revisits kindergarten while teaching listening skills in Howard B. Wigglebottom Learns to Listen. Students read the animated book while identifying the importance of being a good listener at school. While reviewing the different components of being a good listener, student complete an animated activity and sing songs to help them remember all the ways they need to listen and how to listen with their whole body. Students love when Howard visits their class!

1st grade

To review the importance of listening and how it helps them be successful at school, students hear the story Listen Buddy and discuss how they use their whole body to listen and why it's important to be a good listener. Students then complete an interactive coloring activity where they are instructed to color different parts of the bunny different colors. They have to use their listening skills to know what to color i.e. color the bunnies nose pink, color the bunnies tail green, etc. Students then compare their bunny to the counselors to see if they match!

Self Esteem with Adolescent Girls

I recently had the opportunity to be the guest speaker for a Girl Power Group at B Balanced LLC. The Girl Power Group was lead by B Balanced owner Brittany Todd (ACE, RYT). During the group, girls participate in fitness, nutrition, and self-esteem building exercises. Recently they focused on goal setting and she requested that I speak with the girls about self-esteem. When planning my hour and a half presentation/discussion, I naturally thought about the Self Esteem Toolkit by Dove and particularly the video that was created about body image and the media. I adapted the toolkit for my presentation and before ending the session with an open discussion, included from the School Counselor Blog "It's what's on the inside that counts" activity. At the end of the discussion, Brittany had the girls complete an interactive quiz about food and nutrition then concluded the 3 hour group with an hour of Zumba with the girls. I had a wonderful time collaborating with a passionate health and wellness professional that shares my vision of supporting young women in developing physical and emotional health.

K-2 Career Lesson

In preparation for Career Day (which was yesterday, went fabulously, and I'll blog more about soon), my wonderful and dynamic co-counselor Cassandra did a rotation of classroom lessons with the kinder-2nd graders on career awareness. To do this in a developmentally appropriate, introductory, and fun way- she read the story The Berenstain Bears on the Job and talked with students about key words/concepts, including: job, career, what their job is (going to school), and tools used for different jobs. To introduce students (and enhance career awareness/exposure- what elementary school is all about) to different jobs, she then played the game Guess What I Am. First she modeled how to play by holding a card up to her face and having students share words/clues about the job to have her guess what the job was. For example, if she held up the card that showed she was a teacher, hints might be: students, pencil, classroom, math, etc. After students understood how to play she called up students one at a time to hold the cards up and have peers give hints for them to guess what they were. Students loved this interactive activity where they had the chance to learn and discuss different jobs. At the end of the activity, students received a copy of an activity sheet called 'When I Grow Up' from the Jumbo Book of Preschool Activities where they got to identify different jobs and draw a picture of what they would like to be when they grow up.

Social Skills with ED class

Each month I meet with the Emotionally Disabled (ED) class to do social skills activities with them. Oftentimes, I cover topics that are covered during classroom guidance but I also take the opportunity to do activities tailored to the needs of these students. Through collaboration with the ED teachers, I determine what the current need is and select activities based on their feedback. One student in particular has been having difficulty with transition (he doesn't want to transition OUT of the ED class). To help support his success and to promote his attempt in transitioning out of the class, I focused on this topic with the students today. We read Julia Cook's book, Don't Be Afraid To Drop and talked about the different mix of feelings we experience with transition. We also discussed the pros and cons of transition and how we experience transition all the time. Students had the opportunity to draw a picture of a time they had to transition. I encouraged the students that since they were able to successfully transition before, they will be able to use those skills learned through their previous experience to help them with transition in the future. We also discussed how transition is important to grow as an individual and to not miss out on fun, new, and exciting opportunities that come along. If you have a student struggling with transition, this book is a great resource to use!

Teachers promoting Careers

It's always such a joy to walk into a classroom and see a counseling related resource I use with students visible in the room. It's also wonderful when teachers do classroom instructional activities that correlate and support the counseling curriculum. I walked down the third grade hall the other day and saw posted outside a classroom a writing lesson that was done on careers and had to share. The students had the opportunity to write about what career/job they wanted when they grow up. They then using card stock people cutouts, decorated the card stock in the career they wrote about. It's very apparent by looking at the pictures below that the students really got into this activity. When talking to the teacher she said she plans to use these cutouts for other activities throughout the year.

Seeing this really makes me excited about our upcoming school-wide Career Day in January! :)

Bullying Awareness on the Wall

To summarize the end of our classroom guidance bullying lessons and to remind students of the importance of NOT allowing bullying at their school, we posted the pledge against bullying in the hallway for all students to see. Students love finding where they signed and I hope it serves as a reminder that they will not bully or stand by and watch it happen to someone else.

I also had the opportunity to do an extension activity with a 5th grade class on the bully machine lesson I discussed in a previous post. To do this activity, I adapted my own version of The School Counselor Blog's anti-bully machine created by Danielle. Students teamed up to do different parts of the machine, some were the 'architects,' their job was to design how the machine would look, some were the 'negative ninjas," their job was to find negative terms and pictures from magazines to put on the 'pain' side of the machine. Lastly, there were the "positive promoters," their job was to find positive terms and pictures from magazines to put on the 'power' side of the machine. Students also used construction paper to write painful and powerful words that have been said to them to add to the collage. Some students even cut out pieces of the machine they created from the first lesson to add to the collage. It is now displayed in the 4th and 5th grade hallway and the students love it!

I wanted to remind students of how to positively and effectively deal with bullying by adding the "What will YOU do to STOP bullying at your school?" section. I made sure to include all the ways we discussed on how they can actively work to stop and prevent bullying from continuing.

Red Ribbon Recap!

We had a very successful Red Ribbon Week this year with participation from so many students and staff! Here are the highlights:

Monday

To kick-off RRW we had a PBIS assembly where HTCs Nicole Hyman came with McGruff the crime dog and members of the fire department talked with students about safety.

Students also received Red Ribbons that said they show 'Good Character' by being Drug Free! (It was a great continuation from Character Counts Week.)

Tuesday

"Sock it to Drugs Day!" AKA "Crazy Sock Day!"

Wednesday

"Put a Cap on Drugs Day!"

Thursday

Gotta love faculty participation!

"Slam Dunk Drugs are Junk"

Students enjoyed showing off their favorite sports teams!

Friday 

"Everyone Wear Red Day!"

Friday also concluded the 3rd annual door contest!

Thanks to everyone for participating and showing the importance of being healthy and drug free!