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!

2nd & 5th Bullying Lesson

2nd grade

This week 2nd graders had the opportunity to participate in a classroom guidance lesson that promoted bullying awareness. Much like the 1st grade lesson, students were informed of what the words bully, bystander, and target/victim meant, then participated in a role-play with the counselor as the 'bully,' one student as the 'victim,' and several other students as the 'bystanders.' (It's never good to have a student play the bully or for a timid student to play the victim.) The role-play involved the 'bully' saying something along the lines of "Give me your lunch money!" and the rest of the students playing along. It was a nice visual for students to understand what all the terms meant and they enjoyed 'playing' their role. To reinforce student understanding of the terms, the WONDERFUL story "The Bully Blockers Club" was read to the students and they completed the 'Bully Blocker Bingo' activity from the book, "That's My Story Too!". A parent letter was sent home with students that was photocopied on the backside of the bingo sheet to educate parents on what bullying is and how to provide support for their children if they ever feel their child is a victim of bullying. At the end of the lesson students had the opportunity to sign the pledge against bullying a receive a "Take a stand, lend a hand against bullying" sticker.

5th grade

This week in classroom guidance, 5th grade students learned about bullying and spent a lot of time discussing what a bystander is. Students had the opportunity to read "Good-bye Bully Machine" and discuss how they are the ones in the school building that have the power to make the school bully-free. The bully machine is a large, cold, loud, and fearful machine that operates on students being mean, hurtful, and negative towards others. To make the machine break down and not work, students need to stand together and not let bullying happen. By taking a stand against bullying, it is less likely to occur because it isn't accepted and it teaches the bully the way others expect to be treated....with RESPECT! To reinforce the topics discussed in the book, question cards from the "Good-bye Bully Machine" card game were distributed to each group and they had the opportunity to 'think, pair, and share' what they would do in different scenarios. Students then completed the "Build a Bully Machine" activity from the FreeSpirit leaders guide with a copy of the bully word search on the back of their handout for later reference. Students also received a copy of the "Let's Talk About Bullying and Cyberbullying" activity book from Positive Promotions (purchased by the PTO) while signing the pledge against bullying.

To learn more about this amazing book that I'm so glad I introduced this year, please watch the video below!

1st & 4th Bullying Lessons

1st grade

For this weeks bullying awareness lesson with 1st grade, the story "Chester Raccoon and the Big Bad Bully" was used to teach students about what a bully, bystander, and target/victim are. To start the lesson, students were informed of what all the words meant, then role-played with the counselor as the 'bully,' one student as the 'victim,' and several other students as the 'bystanders.' (It's never good to have a student play the bully or for a timid student to play the victim.) The role play involves the 'bully' saying something along the lines of "Give me your lunch money!" and the rest of the students playing along. It's a nice visual for students to understand what all the terms mean and they enjoyed 'playing' along. To reinforce student understanding of the terms, the story was then read to the students and discussion questions were asked from the book, "That's My Story Too!". Students then had the opportunity to complete two activity sheets from the Tanglewood Press website, one where they cut and pasted positive things to cover up or "Get Rid of the Bully!" In the other activity sheet, students identified what they would do if someone bullied them. Student's then signed the pledge banner against bullying and received a 'take a stand, lend a hand' sticker (purchased by the PTO).

4th grade

This week in classroom guidance, 4th graders discussed the difference between a bully, bystander, and target/victim and read "Nobody Knew What to Do: A Story about Bullying." Through discussion questions from the book, "That's My Story Too!" students spent a lot of time on what a bystander is, reasons why people stand by and let things happen that they know is wrong, and most importantly- all the ways they can 'speak up' without having to necessarily say something directly to the individual that is bullying. The extension activity in the "That's My Story Too!" book was then used, where students identified ways to 'stop' bullying and each table had the chance to read a scenario card and share with the group what they would do to solve that problem. At the end of the lesson students had the opportunity to sign the pledge banner against bullying and receive a copy of the cyberbullying activity book from Positive Promotions (purchased by the PTO).

Red Ribbon Week

To support the importance of being drug free and healthy, our school celebrates National Red Ribbon Week each year, the last week of October. This year, October 24-28th is Red Ribbon Week!

Each day on the morning announcements there will be a special message regarding Red Ribbon Week.  We will also be saying the Red Ribbon Week Pledge after the Pledge of Allegiance.  Here is a list of the activities that we are happy to be participating in! As an incentive to promote participation, teachers tally the number of students that participate each day and the top 5 classes that have the most participation will receive a prize and the teachers will receive a duty free lunch! 

Below is a list of the activities we will be doing at our school.

Monday:  Everyone receive a Red Ribbon to kick off Red Ribbon Week.  Also, students will read then post the Red Ribbon Week History somewhere in their classroom.

Tuesday:  “Sock it to Drugs Day!” Everyone will wear the 'craziest' socks they have!!! Students will sign, decorate, and cut out red ribbons, then put them up in the hallway outside of their classroom.  We hope to have ribbons up all over the school!

Wednesday:  “Put a Cap on Drugs Day!” Everyone wear a hat or cap! Students will read and sign the class pledge to be drug free and post it somewhere in their classroom.

Thursday: “Slam Dunk Drugs are Junk!” Wear a favorite sports team jersey or logo. During writing students will write about why it’s important to be healthy and drug free. Door contest concludes at end of the day.

Friday: “Everyone Wear Red Day!” 3^rd annual door contest winners (judged by PTO) will be selected and announced!! (1 winner per grade- classroom prizes awarded)

Other ideas:

         Writing Prompts:

            “I promise to live a drug free life by…”

            “The choice for me is drug free because…”

            “If someone asks me to use drugs (including cigarettes) I can say…”

         Brainstorming Ideas:
             “Ways I can respect myself…”

             “List of better things to do than drugs…”

             “How does character tie in with being drug free??

I'm looking forward to posting pictures to showcase all the participation of students and faculty at our school!

K & 3rd Bullying Lessons

October is National Bullying Prevention Month and to build student awareness on this topic we are focusing on bullying in our classroom guidance lessons. My co-counselor and I are on a three week rotating schedule to see classes and this past week we had kindergarten and 3rd grade, below is a review of the topic/lessons we facilitated.

Kindergarten- The emphasis in all kindergarten classes is to develop awareness and familiarity with terms, feelings, and choices. For this lesson, students were introduced to the topic of bullying and what it means through the story "Howard B. Wigglebottom Learns About Bullies" in this story they learned about what bullying is and what to do if it happens to them. To enhance their understanding of the concept they sang a song and did other interactive activities on the We Do Listen website that supplements all the Howard books. Be sure to check it out, it's wonderful! Students received a take away activity sheet from the site that allows families to review the lesson with their child and a coloring sheet from the site was on the backside of the take away sheet, reminding students to be brave, be bold, and to tell a teacher what's happening. Kindergartner's love Howard and you will too!

3rd grade- To review student understanding of what bullying is we start out the lesson with a Bullying Questionnaire from the "Skits, Raps, & Poems For the School Counselor" book. To do this I laminated 6x6 sheets of construction paper with red on one side and green on the other. When I read a question aloud, students held up the green side for yes/true or the red side for no/false. It was a great way to see what the students responses were and what the class understanding was of the concept. After the questionnaire I inform them of the three words we would be focusing on for the lesson: bully, bystander, and victim/target. We then read the book "Bully BEANS" by Julia Cook (one of my favorite authors!), she also has a great supplementary teacher's guide that goes with the book. B.E.A.N.S. stands for Bullies Everywhere Are Now Stopped! Once we finish the story we define the three words introduced and identified the characters in the story that were most similar to those three terms. We also connected the discussion to the previous classroom guidance theme discussed (Conflict Resolution), just like they have many solutions for resolving conflicts, they also have lots of choices for resolving problems they have with bullies. Students then had the opportunity to ask questions and make comments regarding the topic. They then had the opportunity to sign a pledge banner that will be displayed at the end of the month showing they are standing up against bullying. Thanks to our generous PTO we also ordered and distributed a copy of "Let's Learn About Bullying & Cyberbullying: An Educational Activities Book" from Positive Promotions for each student to keep and review.

I look forward to posting a picture of the banner at the end of the month that will remind all students to take a stand against bullying!

Conflict Resolution/Problem Solving

I've just completed my second rotation of classroom guidance and the topic was conflict resolution and problem solving. I usually do this lesson later on in the semester but after collaborating with some teachers and my co-counselor, it was determined that it would be more beneficial to do earlier in the year. Since I became a full time counselor six years ago, I've been implementing the program I'm about to describe and I absolutely LOVE it, it's developmentally appropriate, easy to understand, and can be implemented school wide. Teachers especially like it because it helps the students work to solve their own problems.

The program is called Kelso's Choices and comes with multiple posters, a DVD, a puppet, a storybook, curriculum manual, and a CD to print reproducible pages for distribution. It's a bit expensive but through collaborating with our generous PTO, they were able to purchase the program for us!

What it's all about: During the lesson we first discuss what conflict is and how since we're all different and unique- disagreements and problems come up from time to time and it's what you do to solve it that counts! Students are informed that they all have the skills to work through their own problems they just need to figure out what works best for them and that situation. All problems are broken down into two categories; small problems and big problems. Big problems are problems that involve safety (them or someone else getting physically hurt) or when two or more choices are unsuccessful at solving a small problem. The only solution for a big problem is to tell an adult they trust because the problem is too big for them to solve on their own. All other problems are considered small problems and they can try different strategies to work through it themselves before getting an adults help. During the lesson we watch the DVD that describes this in more details then afterwards have a discussion, do some role-playing of different scenario's, and discuss "I" messages for effective communication.

HIGHLIGHT for Teachers and Parents: When a student or child comes to you with a problem that doesn't involve safety ask them, "What did you do to try to solve the problem?" If they don't mention several strategies 'on the wheel' tell them to refer to the wheel to help them solve the problem. Encourage them that they have the ability to work through the problem and also tell them that if they still have the problem after trying several possible solutions to then let you know so you can brainstorm together to solve the problem.

All teachers were supplied with a copy of the wheel to post in their classroom, if you'd like an extra copy or would like to implement the program at home let me know and I'll get you a copy of the wheel!

HIGHLIGHT for Counselors: I often refer to 'the wheel' when I do individual and small group counseling. I have a poster displayed in my office and classroom for reference.

5th grade lesson:

I purchased a curriculum last year that I've used in individual counseling and have been excited to use in classroom guidance, after some brainstorming I adapted it for a 40 minute classroom guidance lesson for 5th graders and it went well! One of my favorite counseling writers is Diane Senn and you'll see me refer to her a lot here on the blog. Some of my counselor friends and I often refer to her by first name as if we know her personally or she's one of our dearest friends, we do that with a lot of others including Danielle (from school counselor blog) and 'the Julia's' (Julia Taylor and Julia Cook)....we get a good laugh out of it but what can I say- their stuff is good and we referred to them a lot.

Anyway, the book I used for this lesson was Coping with Conflict and I used it to create a "Timely Tools Box," it included laminated conflict resolution cards and "Timely Tools Conflict Cards." For the lesson, I distributed the resolution cards around the classroom and each student that had one stood up, showed it to the class, and read the description on the back (there were about 16 total). After all the possible solutions were shared and discussed the remaining students received a conflict card that they took turns reading. They then chose a possible solution they would use if they had that problem. This lesson was great because it gave ALL the students in the class an opportunity to participate. Students were encouraged to keep an open mind because how a classmate might solve a problem might be different from them. This was a great way for them to see all the different ways different problems could be solved!

To purchase these resources and to see other conflict resolution resouces click here.