Talking about responsibility can easily be a boring lecture for kids. We made it fun and interactive by talking about "whose job is it" for the important responsibilities in their lives!
If you don't have this book as part of your counseling collection, I highly recommend it. My students really enjoy making their own remote and it is such a helpful tool to use during problem solving and when working on impulse control. It can be adapted for many situations and is a great visual tool. Here is what the book looks like: This is the remote that I make with my students. I have what each button means written underneath each of the buttons. Mine is made out of cardstock but I know there are other versions on pinterest and other blogs made from foam and other materials. Enjoy!!
See how to change school culture by investing in leadership with habits. Read on to see how you can ignite a flame in your staff and students.
To make life a bit easier, we went through and collected the best products for back to school and pinned the best selling counseling products from tons of stores.
Check In Check Out is an evidence-based tier two behavior intervention. Here's my best tips, tricks, and resources to help you succeed with CICO.
Not only am I a new school counselor, but I am a new school counselor within a district that has not had elementary school counselors for 8...
15 clubs for school counselors to lead: get your students engaged, involved, and growing with these fun, meaningful activities!
Need a resource to engage your counseling program's youngest learners? This packet of Primary Social-Emotional Centers on Careers will meet your needs! This packet includes 6 interactive, independent centers on Community Helpers and Careers for Pre-K, Kindergarten, and 1st Graders. An “I Can” statement as well as instructions for the educator on prep and implementation are included with each center. Students will be able to name, label, identify, describe, and discuss careers and community helpers through: 1) Roll-a-Vehicle - roll the dice and color in or write in a vehicle a community helper uses 2) Transportation Puzzles - match careers to their modes of transportation 3) Career Sorts - sort careers by ones that work together 4) Play Dough Tools - make your a tool someone in that career might use 5) Write the Room - hunt the room for careers (and work on beginning sounds too) 6) My Careers Book - create a book of careers and practice spelling these words Check out the Preview for an picture of each Center in action! CLICK HERE for more Career Exploration Resources!
Kelso is back in ACTION at Lee Elementary! Kelso & His Friend Lily sitting atop my bookshelf Students have been begging for Kelso to come visit their classroom with me and it is finally time! Kelso is our counseling mascot at Lee, helping students solve their problems with his simple wheel of choices: Kelso's Choices is a conflict-management curriculum that teaches children that they can be problem solvers themselves. Students learn to determine small problems they can handle on independently and large problems that require an adult's help. After reintroducing him to our students and having them explain how it works (see previous post here), we were ready to create our own Kelso to help us out. I was inspired by two different bloggers, Mrs. H & The Creative Counselor, and adapted their ideas to "Kelso-ize" them. In first grade, students made their Kelso's with his mouth containing the different choices they can try to resolve conflict: In second grade, students made a problem solving lily pad for Kelso and his choices. The bottom plate had the 9 choices glued onto it and the top plate had a slice cut out for them to spin it around until they found one they wanted to try:
Use this interactive fishing activity as a school counselor introduction lesson to teach students about your roles and responsibilities
In first grade we have begun our month on thinking about our futures. Where do we want to go to college? What do we want to be when we grow up? Our first lesson focused on the career options that are out there. To get their brains thinking, we read Being Wendy written by Fran Drescher. This story follows a young girl named Wendy on her journey of thinking outside of the box. She lives in Boxville, where everyone must pick a box that shows their career choice. Even the dogs where boxes! Wendy cannot figure out just one career that she would like to have because she has many interests. Throughout the story we talk about the following points (from The Corner on Character blog): 1. Do you think everyone grows up to get the job they wanted when they were a kid? Share responses from the teachers at your school at this time to demonstrate that dreams change as we grow. 2. If you set a goal to have a specific career someday and you grow up to be something different, does that mean you failed at your goal? 3. Wendy said that she felt different from everyone else, but was afraid to tell someone. Why do you think she was afraid? 4. Is it a bad thing to be different from others? How do you treat people who are different from you? 5. The author stated, “Wendy tried to take her dad’s advice, but the more she thought about it, the more she hated thinking inside the box.” Have you ever heard the expression, “thinking inside/outside the box”? What does it mean? How does it apply here? 6. What do you think the town of “Freedomland” is like? After the story we start brainstorming what we might want to be when we grow up. Then we narrowed down what career we would want to have if we lived in Boxville, with one exception: it can be more than one idea! Students created their Boxville character and wrote down many career options they are interested in pursuing. You can download the body template from The Corner on Character here. Here are some of the Boxville residents they created:
Cutting, self-injury, and self-harm behaviors are a red flag for school counselors. Work quickly and effectively to help students develop coping skills.
Updated May 2017: The 2017-2018 Planner is up on TpT, AND there is a 2nd design to choose from! Click here for the Black, White, and Marble Themed 2017-2018 Planner Click here for the Mint and Gold…
Use these meet the counselor activities in your beginning of the year counseling lessons. Students will learn about the role of the school counselor and what you can help with.
Looking for a fun friendship qualities activity? This "what I like in a friend" glyph is perfect for group counseling and individual counseling!
What do you really need starting out as a new school psychologist?
Are you a first-year school counselor? Looking for where to begin or what to do first? I've got the hook up... start reading now!
When I first started as a school counselor, I had no experience teaching. Zero. I didn’t even have internship experience because most of my internships had been in school-based therapy positions and one I did while actually employed in my first position. Delivering classroom lessons was TERRIFYING and overwhelming. I saw so much value in […]
school psychologist and school counselor organization tips
The ultimate school counselor supply list to stock your office with school counseling supplies for a packed school year. Books, crafts, prizes.
30 youtube videos for elementary school counselors to use during class lessons.
Whether it's the death of a community member, a shooting, or a natural disaster, teachers and counselors can support students using these strategies.
Restorative practices in elementary schools are incredible, but they look a little different than in the secondary levels.
After seven years of tweaking, I have finally finished another revision of the editable school counseling planner that I make each year. I create a printed version, a DIY version and a new interactive digital
Learn how to create a peaceful and effective Calm Corner to help children self-regulate in your classroom or home.
The Behavior Contract We all need one. Adults and students alike. This contract is something I give out at the beginning of the year t...
Resources, Forms, and Tools for planning and documenting Pediatric Occupational Therapeutic Interventions and Data Collection/Progress. Includes Assessment Checklists and Documentation Forms for Ongoing Intervention.
In my school counseling program, I have enjoyed doing attendance small group sessions. My students have really enjoyed the activities and seem to get the big
5 great school counselor organization strategies to help you conquer this year! The more organized you are, the more efficient you can be!
This month we are focusing on Careers at our school. At the elementary level we help children become aware of the many opportunities in t...
5 great school counselor organization strategies to help you conquer this year! The more organized you are, the more efficient you can be!
I promised this post FOREVER ago and just haven’t done it for many reasons. Some of which aren’t good ones, some of which are unimportant right now. But, REGARDLESS, it is here! I think at this point, we know I love Erin Condren Planners. I received my Teacher Planner back in the spring for this upcoming …
Working on helping kids understand big deal/little deal? Check out my size of the problem lesson and see if it'll work for you!
It's that restless time of the year where teachers are exhausted and students are pushing the boundaries. I've noticed our first graders needing lots of reminders to sit on the carpet and keep their bodies to themselves...so it's a good time to read Julia Cook's Personal Space Camp! This is an amazingly entertaining book that keeps the students engaged and laughing throughout the pages. We meet Louis, a student that is obsessed with outer space but has no concept of personal space. We watch him "lunar land" on someone's leg, smash into satellites (other students), and demonstrate an eclipse (getting in between two people talking) before he is invited to go to Personal Space Camp. Using bubbles (which I also blow onto the students to observe their properties), hula hoops, a PSLUR, and body cut-out, he learns about personal space and realizes it is very different than outer space. After the story, students sorted different scenarios into 2 personal space categories: good choices vs bad choices. Here is a link to the organizer and here is a link to the activity packet I used for them to sort from Lisa Parnello. And this just cracks me up...
Continuing on with our lessons about RESPECT, my class moved on to Empathy. For those of you following along, this lesson went with the "E" in Digital Divide and Conquer's RESPECT posters. I began by showing the students this Sesame Street video defining Empathy. Let's face it, empathy is a hard word to understand and Sesame Street has a knack for breaking hard concepts down for kids. I will admit, when I first projected this up, there were several groans from my fifth graders. But by the end of the video, they were laughing and fully into it. Plus, they understood Empathy :) Once we had a good working definition of what it means to be empathetic, I walked them through the five steps towards showing empathy in any given situation. I got these steps from this lesson here, and I thought they were just perfect for breaking down the process we go through when putting ourselves in another person's shoes. I then broke the students into groups of 4. Each group was given a scenario in which they could possibly show empathy to the person being effected by the circumstances. I also gave each student a different colored sticky note. I had them cut each sticky in half, so they would have a total of 5 stickies (actually 6, but they used that 6th one for a book mark or something.) On each of the five stickies, I asked the students to write how they would respond to the scenario according to the five steps. For example, if the scenario was "A student, who studied hard for her test, failed." the kids would write how they would watch that student's body language and listen to her words in step one, or show the student who failed that they care in step five. Once all of that was done, each student placed their sticky on the "step" on the recording sheet I gave them. Then, taking the idea from these collaborative posters from Runde's Room, the kids read each idea and combined them into one "best" way to respond empathetically to each step in the scenario. Finally, each group presented their scenarios and the steps towards empathy that the kids decided upon. All in all, this was a great way to get the kids thinking about putting themselves in each others' shoes. They now have a new word in their vocabulary and ways to help them show empathy. Would you like the two printables I gave the students? You can get them by clicking here. If you are following this series, you can find the rest of the lessons below: R - Heart Mending E - Empathy (this post here :)) S - THINKing before you Speak Follow me on Snapchat for even more teaching ideas!
I received so many requests for my monthly data spreadsheet that I decided to share my weekly data collection with you as well! I found that collecting data on a weekly basis makes it much easier t…
Effective social responsibility strategies to teach kids to solve problems peacefully and resolve conflicts independently.
Whether it's that enormous caseload of students, pesky parents phoning daily, or the ever-increasing pressure from your administrator to see graduation rates improve, we counselors are used to the precarious position of wearing about 765 different hats. Of course, with that, comes the ever-present reality of a never-ending to-do list and the necessity to maximize productivity on a daily basis.
If you've downloaded my free ebook with 101 ideas for school counseling centers and still have questions about how to do school counseling centers, this is for you! I've compiled a list of the most frequent questions so that you can get started with centers in your classroom guidance lessons!
5 Tips, commonly asked questions, and an editable school counselor portfolio for your next school counselor position interview.
I stumbled upon a great find at the bookstore, Being Wendy, written by Fran Drescher. In this delightful picture book, the main character lives in a town called Boxville. Everyone in Boxville follows the rule of wearing a box with the name of their career on the front of it. Police Officer Miranda Wrights has "police officer" written on her box. Her teacher Mrs. Reedenwright has "teacher" written on her box. But Wendy doesn't want to be labeled as just one thing, she wants to think outside the box and be many things... This was a great book to read aloud during our college & career month in May. Many students think they need to know now what they want to be when they grow up, and my goal was to dispel this, among other, myths. You do not need to know who you want to be in the future because the possibilities are endless! You can change your mind, explore new careers, and find what interests you. It is important to have a plan of action once you decide on a career and everyone chooses their own path. We then played "Career Charades!" Students drew a career card from the stack I made and had to silently act out the career they chose. Examples of Careers & Actions: Dentist: pretend to look at teeth Astronomer: pretend to look through a telescope Doctor: pretend to check a heartbeat Photographer: pretend to take a picture Painter: pretend to paint a wall Truck Driver: pretend to drive and honk your horn Musician: pretend to play a guitar Builder: pretend to hammer a nail Librarian: pretend to read books aloud Mover: pretend to lift a heavy box Teacher: pretend to teach the class Singer: pretend to sing into a microphone Hairdresser: pretend to do someone's hair Dancer: pretend to dance around the room
