Daydream about the decorative possibilities with these 47 beautiful offices from all across our therapist network.
Here are your school counselor office must-haves, the tools and resources you will not be able to live without.
Elementary school counseling office decor and set up. How to make your school counseling office hygge. Creating a welcoming space is vital for students' success in counseling.
These items will help you keep an organized counseling office. They are must-haves for your school counseling office, check them out and starting making your counseling office epic.
Effective therapy metaphors - the best analogies for growth, self-care, emotions, addiction, grief, counseling, and life.
Ladies and Gentleman... we officially have the first week down in the books!! And what an AMAZING week it was!! #BestFirstWeekEver!! My kiddos are just awesome. We learned a lot and laughed a lot! My own children also had a great week (aside from a quick bout of a stomach bug that kept one home for a day!). My oldest, Drew, started 1st grade. My middle, Quinn, started Kindergarten. And my toddler twins, Addy and Chase, began two-mornings-a-week preschool. Additionally, Mr. Musings from the Middle School (my husband Dennis), started a new school year, too! Phew!! My head is spinning! Anyway, I hope everyone is having a great weekend and recovering from this busy time of year. This post is mainly a pictorial of some of the goings on in my classroom this week. As we settle into our routine, I'll be back with more "meaty" posts (and hopefully some new videos, too!). One of my favorite activities from the week was this Growth Mindset lesson that I adapted from here. Basically, the kids had to create the image on top using just a piece of paper and scissors. It was NOT easy... but that's exactly the point! As the kids worked, I wrote down some of the comments I heard. Things like, "this is impossible," and "I give up!" After I let them struggle for a while, I brought them back together and discussed the activity with them. It was eye-opening to see their words. They all agreed that their attitude was too negative so of course they would never have been successful. Then we read the Growth Mindset posters hanging in our room and discussed what each one meant. I closed with this video from Khan Academy. It was a fun and powerful lesson. One of the BEST purchases I made from TpT for this school year is the Icebreakers that Rock bundle from Cult of Pedagogy. This product contains three PowerPoint activities that allow students to talk to each other in an easy, comfortable way. What is great about these is that you can use them as one, big activity, or you can break them up, showing just a few slides here and there, as "brain breaks" through out the day. That is how I used them. So, on the first day, I did a big "Find Someone Who" activity with them. This allowed all the kids to learn each other's names. Next, I assigned them all their lockers and we practiced opening the combination locks (super-stressful for these first time locker users)! After that, we did a few slides from Icebreakers that Rock. Then, we went over the syllabus. Next, a few more Icebreakers that Rock slides. After that, I handed out and went over all the paperwork that had to go home and be signed (oh, the paperwork!!!). Then, a few more slides right before lunch. And then a few more right after lunch. Next up, a tour of the building. Then a few more slides before trying our lockers again. Finally, another slide right before dismissal. It was the perfect break/filler/attention-getter/distraction to use throughout the day... actually, I used the slides throughout the whole week! Run to TpT and pick this product up today! Totally worth every penny. (Some of the slides can be done silently. I LOVED these slides!!) Of course, we had to number our notebooks to get ready for ELA next week. I always tell kids that this is the easiest, most difficult task that we do all year :) I really the love smell of a Mr. Sketch anchor poster in the morning! This year, I'm starting with Reading Nonfiction: Notice and Note Stances, Signposts, and Strategies. My thinking is that it will really help with getting started with Article of the Week. Here is one of several of the posters I'll be using to teach these strategies. I'm jumping on the #ObserveMe bandwagon! Read more about it here. I'll keep you updated on how this goes throughout the year! Okay... that is enough for now! The beach is calling my name... nothing beats September here at the Jersey Shore! Hope the back-to-school season is treating you well! I'd love to hear how your school year is going so far. Happy Teaching!!
These items will help you keep an organized counseling office. They are must-haves for your school counseling office, check them out and starting making your counseling office epic.
Find this colouring sheet in a 3 pack bundle with worksheets to explore coping skills and emotions, too! https://www.etsy.com/ca/listing/1336358178/values-and-feelings-therapy-coloring?click_key=93a2a960f150005d711077dbb910442a2ce17b3d%3A1336358178&click_sum=c24a65de&ref=shop_home_feat_1&pro=1&sts=1 This values worksheet is great for both youth and adult therapy clients! Choose a color for each values statement in the key at the bottom of the page, and then color each value in the heart accordingly. This therapy tool allows you to see how personal values have changed over time, and continue to change and develop. I've had clients choose to color while we talk, and seeing how they choose to color the heart often gives us something else to talk about! Encourages emotional learning, emotional self-reflection, and personal growth. Colouring is also a great relaxation, mindfulness, coping skill activity for anxiety or stress. This instant download PDF will be available to print immediately at home or at your favourite print shop, formatted to a standard 8.5" by 11" size. Enjoy!
Here are your school counselor office must-haves, the tools and resources you will not be able to live without.
This collaborative school art poster is a no-prep, engaging, and inclusive way of bringing social emotional learning into your primary classroom or small counseling group through mindfulness and teamwork. The giant coloring poster make a fabulous bulletin board for the school hallway, library, counseling office or outside of your Kindergarten, Grade 1, Grade 2 or Grade 3 classroom. Your students or learning buddies will work on coloring the 36 coloring pages in a unique way, before bringing the final artwork together in a dynamic mural to support your character education program. Includes: PDF *Please note that this is a digital download so that you can conveniently print from your home and workplace. Nothing will be physically shipped to you. • 1 collaboration mural (You Belong Here) • Each set includes 36 coloring pages that come together as a beautiful collaborative poster that reminds elementary students to be inclusive, kind and self-confident • 3.5x3.5ft or 3ft options
Looking for a fun and meaningful activity for your school counseling worry group? Help your students make a worry monster! Get details here:
A blog about school counseling and school counseling resources
In this post I share Zones of Regulation® activities, games, and lessons to use in elementary school. Plus what you can do so your school has a common language around self-regulation. If you are currently using or thinking about using the Zones of Regulation counseling curriculum you have to check out this post!
Starting the 2020 school year has been challenging. Create a school counseling office that makes students feel calm & connected! See how..
Are you curious about using centers in your school counseling program? Check out this breakdown that'll show you exactly how to set up your centers and download a FREE guidebook with over 100 school counseling centers!
I’m a huge proponent of using a school counseling needs assessment. Any time you can get information to guide your program and make it more intentional is wonderful! A needs assessment shouldn’t just be something to check the box for, though. If you want it to be as helpful as can be, you’ll need to […]
CBT activities are the perfect for school counselors looking for effective and reusable materials for individual counseling with kids.
For the last few years, I would say that the majority of my faculty on fully on board with the importance of social emotional learning for their students, and support my role and work. That said, it wasn’t always like that. When I first started, the teachers had some strong and incorrect ideas about what […]
Here are your school counselor office must-haves, the tools and resources you will not be able to live without.
Learn effective counseling termination activities with children. Explore 23 interventions to say goodbye, reflect on progress, and plan for success.
Starting off the year (or even just the quarter!) with your curriculum already mapped out? Huge time saver! This FREEBIE is a yearlong counseling curriculum map for K-5th grade with 16 social-emotional learning lesson ideas listed for each grade level. Love this but want it EDITABLE? Find that here: School Counseling Curriculum Maps EDITABLE […]
Looking for fun school counseling Valentine's day activities? Your students will love these 12 fun, hands-on activities and games!
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.
A calm corner are great tools in the classroom to improve student self regulation, manage behavior, and build social emotional skills.
Check out these practical tips for new school counselors to be successful and rock their first year in the school counseling profession!
These items will help you keep an organized counseling office. They are must-haves for your school counseling office, check them out and starting making your counseling office epic.
Documentation - SMART Goals, Said Synonyms, Intervention words, Treatment goals and objectives
5 great school counselor organization strategies to help you conquer this year! The more organized you are, the more efficient you can be!
A list of 50 commonly used conversation starters, questions, and phrases used in therapy sessions, "therapy language." Do you speak therapist?
30 youtube videos for elementary school counselors to use during class lessons.
School Counselor Office Tour Alternate Title: How to Turn a Kindergarten Boys' Bathroom into a School Counseling Office This post will show you around my elementary counseling office and show you how I organize my space! The alternate title is no joke. Back when I first started teaching at my school, my current office used to be the kindergarten boys' bathroom! A few years ago, we needed extra space, so the counselor's office was turned into a classroom and a bathroom was turned into the counselor's office. Truth be told, you would never really know my office used to be a bathroom. Yes, it is SMALL and in an awkward location in the school, but I love the privacy and it has become a quiet, cozy space to work with kids! (Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links) About My Office Last year, as a first year counselor, I was given a small supply budget and used some of it to spruce up my office. I also wrote a grant through our local education foundation, so that helped to offset some costs and allow me to make my office an inviting space. I work at a K-4 Title I school and am fortunate to be able to see students individually, in small groups, and in classroom lessons. I conduct individual counseling and small groups in my office, and visit each classroom for whole group lessons. Three Main Seating Areas 1) Counseling Couch Although my office is tiny, I have three seating areas that allow a lot of flexibility. The most popular choice for students is my couch! Students love to get comfy on the couch while we chat and I spin my desk chair around to talk with students. We have strict fire safety and health code policies, so I had to buy a "school couch" that can be easily cleaned... unfortunately, that means the couch is actually not very comfy, but the kids don't seem to mind! One thing I love about the couch is the flat arm rests and back surface, which allow me to prop up some comfort items and a bin of fidgets. Find It Here: -Floor Lamp -Inside Out Poster -Hoberman Sphere -Worry Eater -Kimochi Octopus 2) Sand Tray Station Another favorite area for students to sit and chat is my sand tray station. Students love to sit on the Hokki Stools and play with the sand while we talk. The Hokki Stools are a bit pricey, but they are very durable and allow students get some sensory input while we chat because they gently wobble--I love sitting on them, too! I use kinetic sand in my sand tray, which is an absolute favorite because it is very moldable! Helpful hint: I use a 10 liter sand tray and needed about 10 pounds of kinetic sand to fill the tray. If the student is visiting my office for a check-in or a calm down time, he or she often plays with the sand as a sensory tool while we talk. If the student is visiting me to work on a specific counseling goal, I often will give the student a prompt for the sand tray. Because my office is tiny, I don't have the space to display all of the miniatures as recommended for traditional sand tray therapy. However, the organizer that I use as a sand tray table doubles as a storage unit and all of the miniatures are stored inside. When a student is working on a sand tray prompt, I simply pull out the drawers and place them on my small group table, which is located in the center of my office. This allows the student to easily see all of the miniatures that are available and also allows for quick clean up! 3) Small Group Table My small group table seats 5 students comfortably, but I can fit 7-8 students when I'm desperate! I pull over my desk chair to sit at the table with students, which saves space by not having an extra chair at the front end of the table. For extra seating, we pull over the Hokki Stools from the sand tray area. I love having a large dry erase board on the wall near the small group table because we can easily write on it during our groups. Storage, Storage, Storage! When I was hired as the school counselor, I spent half of the summer arranging my office and figuring out where to store everything! Since the office was a bathroom originally, there is no built in storage. Thankfully, the office came with the two metal cabinets you can see in the photo above. The double wide filing cabinet actually does not have any files in it! Instead, all of the drawers are used for storage. The bottom two drawers hold school supplies and art supplies that I use for small groups. The third drawer up holds storage containers for my small group folders (I run 8-10 small groups at the same time, so I needed a place to keep the materials for each group separate). The top two drawers hold games and other materials I use with students. The metal cabinet on the right has two purposes (the above photo shows the cabinet when it is open)! One, it has several shelves that I use for supply and book storage. Two, it holds my coat, purse, and personal items. I actually put a plastic storage container in the storage cabinet to give me even more places to put stuff! Another storage space with two purposes is my paper storage unit. This is beside the two metal storage cabinets. It functions as a small table to place a file sorter and supply container, but most importantly, holds all of my 11 X 18 construction paper! Behind my small group table, I have a small bookshelf that holds some commonly used items. The bottom shelf contains my "grab and go" resources that I keep multiple copies of and can grab quickly when I have a student in need. The middle shelf holds finger puppets and larger puppets that I use with my younger students. My older students also like to use these to role play friendship issues! Two of my favorite puppets are this set of finger puppets from IKEA and this larger happy monster puppet. The top shelf holds an amazing dollhouse that I found on Amazon. It is the perfect size for a tiny office because the front of the house folds out to make the house bigger! My K-1 students love putting the dollhouse on the floor to play and talk through issues! My Desk and Workstation My desk is directly across from the couch. When students sit on the couch, I spin my desk chair around while we chat. This saves a lot of space by not having a second seating area for me. The first major decision I made in my office when I got the counseling job was getting rid of the massive, wooden teacher desk. Sure, it had a lot of great storage drawers, but it was simply too big for the space. Instead, I brought this narrow, wooden desk from home that I had purchased in college. It works great for the space, still has storage, and has a much sleeker look than the teacher desk monstrosity. (Disclaimer: I do not typically have fresh flowers on my desk! These were an end of the year gift from a colleague!) I made the decision to place a metal filing cabinet directly next to my desk, which created a great work station wall. It's magnetic, so I placed magnets on the back of my building schedules, which allows me to take them off easily to refer to often! I also have a magnetic dry erase board that I use for quick reminders and my to do list. Another helpful thing I did was stick a notepad and post-it notes directly to the file cabinet, so I can quickly grab a note and jot down stuff before I forget! An added bonus of having the filing cabinet next to my desk is that it functions as a room divider and blocks my often messy desk from view when you walk into my office! I love that my desk is extra wide because I can keep my School Counselor Planner open on the left side of my desk under my "work station wall" and frequently refer to it throughout the school day! Books, Books, and More Books! I was a classroom teacher before I was a school counselor, and developed a healthy obsession with children's books. My office has a tiny nook right by the door and I decided that it was the perfect spot to wedge in a tall bookshelf. All of my books are organized by counseling topic. Read more about how I organize my counseling library by visiting this post. I use books most often during classroom lessons, but also read them during small group lessons, and sometimes with individual students. I also frequently loan books to families when they are dealing with tough situations at home. I love having so many books available because kids respond so well when they can read about someone else going through a similar situation. On the top shelf of the bookshelf, I keep all of my counseling resource books. I have a lot of great resource books, but my collection does not compare to other counselors' because most of the ideas I use come from blogs, TPT, and digital resources. The Mrs. Potato Head that I use for my K-1 Meet the Counselor lessons is relaxing by my resource books! Technology in School Counseling One final area of my office that students love is my Apple TV. It is mounted above my sand tray, so students can easily see it from my small group table. I can stream digital resources from my computer directly onto the Apple TV. I love showing YouTube clips during my small group lessons because visual media is very engaging to my students. I also love using brain breaks from GoNoodle to get students moving or relaxed. Another great thing about the Apple TV is that I can stream music from iTunes or Pandora to create a relaxing atmosphere in my office. I hope you enjoyed the tour around my office! As a new counselor, I would have loved a post like this because I was completely overwhelmed with setting up a tiny office. Now that I am in my second year, my space has become the perfect place to work with kids! If you have any questions about my office, please feel free to ask them in the comments and I will respond to you! Use the image below to pin my tour and refer back to it later! Thanks for reading! SaveSave SaveSaveSaveSaveSaveSave
Ideas (Virtual/In Person/Digital) for lessons to help students process and reflect on the end of one school year and the start of a new year.
I cannot claim to be an expert with needs assessments but I am happy to share about how I create mine, what's on it, what's worked, and what hasn't.
See multiple school counseling attendance incentives to help engage and motivate your students to come to school. Keep reading to see more...
