Using props in school counseling lessons is a cost-effective way to make lessons memorable and engaging. School counseling props are the perfect way to make a concept come to life and reach students. Jodi from The School Counselor Is In uses props to create creative school counseling lessons.
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 […]
A must-read review of 10 favorite grief counseling resources for children. Perfect for any counselor working with children who have experienced grief or lo
Interviews can be intimidating, right? From what to wear, how to answer questions, and when to follow up, it can be a stressful time as you start your school counseling career, but it doesn't have to be! Check out these strategies for mastering the school counseling interview process. I had some cringe-worthy moments when interviewing for counseling jobs which is why I want to help you! Rocking the Interview: A 5 Step Process Find jobs to apply for: Find your local education job database (I used EdJoin) and seek out word of mouth opportunities too. Include resume must-haves: List your education, experience, and letters of recommendation Dress for success: Dress business professional but keep it comfortable and confident. Show time! Bring your resume to life by communicating your experiences. Sent a thank you card: It's old school but effective. A handwritten thank you card goes a long way. For more details on rocking the interview process, read this blog post. Join my free school counselor bootcamp to feel prepared and ready for everything from your internship to your first 90 days as a new school counselor. What questions are they going to ask in my counseling interview? The most important part of the interview process is preparing for the questions. You are likely racking your brain trying to figure out what you will be asked! Wish you had a hint at which questions you'll have to answer in your interview? You're in luck! ASCA has a list of sample interview questions you can practice here. For more help on how to answer those challenging interview questions listen to this episode of School Counseling Simplified where I do a mock interview with Lauren from Counseling Clique. How do I build a school counseling resume? In order to land an interview, you first need to have a solid resume. There are my recommended key components to put on your school counseling resume. Wish you had an outline of what to include in your resume? These are my go-to points: Education Counseling Experience Work Experience Technology Skills Activities and Honors References Be sure to listen to this podcast episode where Carol Miller from Counseling Essentials shares all about the resume building process. And if you want even more support, check out Boost to learn all of the resume building tips you need! Strategically Selecting Internship Experiences to Build your Portfolio Did you know that you can strategically select internship experiences to build your portfolio? Try the following to increase your chances of landing a job! Cover the 3 tiers: Try to teach your own class lessons, lead your own small group, and observe individual sessions. Take initiative: Seek out opportunities to shadow, observe, plan, and participate! Be obnoxious! Remember you don't get opportunities you don't ask for. Begin with the end in mind: Think about future interview questions / resume building when selecting experiences. I hope these strategies make you feel confident and prepared to ace the interview process. You've got this!
School counselor in the specials rotation? Use units, themed days, interactive notebooks, & centers for great counseling specials rotation activities!
“SHE BULLIED ME.” You know the problem. Your sweet, sweet students using the word “bullying” to describe any kind of conflict that results in their hurt feelings. Too much TV? Well-meaning but overbearing parents? Who knows. The struggle is real though. A couple of years ago I stumbled upon the concept of the “rude moment” […]
Tips for school counseling data collection. School counselors can collect data all year long through self-assessments, parent-teacher surveys, progress monitoring scales, and observations. They can then use this data for their school counseling end of the year report. Revamp your school counseling program with these data collection tips!
Spread the word: 199 Shares Facebook Twitter Email More Do you remember growing up in a world without smart phones and tablets? Our students today will most likely never know what it’s like to be more than one touch away from family, friends, and new ideas. Technology geared towards children sometimes gets a bad rap, but these 7 apps are winners in my book! They help students name feelings, practice deep breathing exercises, and more. These 7 apps are wonderful […]
The first counseling session is your first opportunity to build rapport, establish a safe space, and encourage student agency. Plan that time with purpose.
10 Tips for better classroom management as a school counselor. The things that they didn't teach you in grad school to run a smooth lesson!
One of my biggest strengths (and weaknesses) is that I’m outspoken. There’s not much in the realm of school counseling that I don’t have a strong opinion about. That means there’s some things that are commonplace among other counselors that I don’t do – because they just aren’t in the best interest of my students. […]
7 easy steps to starting small group counseling for School Counselors. Includes a break down of each step to getting started, organized, and includes FREEBIES! Start prepping your small groups today, the hardest part is getting started.
In this article, I will give you four tips to get started and stay constant with a kick-butt school counseling newsletter! Keep reading...
two fun games to use in classroom guidance lessons or small group counseling to teach and practice self control strategies -Counselor Keri
Learn how to implement the self-regulation and the Zones of Regulation at a school-wide level with this blog post. Includes ideas for calm down corners, class lessons, and school counseling activities.
Sharing all of the resilience books for kids I use with my resiliency skills group counseling program, Bounce Back in person and virtually.
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.
Worry Group Art Activity: Help your students in worry group personify their worries by making a worry monster with watercolors and deep breathing!
Present your counseling program and role so you highlight the benefits and resources that are available to staff and students.
When attending a conference like ASCA 2013, there is a lot to learn - including learning about a whole bunch of things that I "should" ...
CBT activities and CBT worksheets are great short-term, effective tools for school counselors to use in individual or small group counseling. This resource is a three-step session plan with printable CBT activities, worksheets, and a counseling craft to engage younger students Students will: learn to identify thoughts and feelings, understand how thoughts and feelings are different, understand how thoughts and feelings influence each other. Thoughts and feelings are an abstract concept for younger students. These hands on school counseling activities make it concrete and easy to understand. What's Included? Three Step Counseling Session Plan Introduction to Thoughts & Feelings: CBT Story, Student Visual, and Student Response Slips Guided Activity: Negative and Positive Thought Sorting Activity. Students recognize how a negative or positive thought will change how they feel. 12 scenario cards, 12 positive thought and 12 negative thought cards Negative/Positive Thinking Visual Independent Activity: Thoughts & Feelings Flower Activity. Students connect how their thinking about a situation leads to feelings and actions. Need more CBT activities? Check out this CBT Bundle. The Helper Squad Series are engaging CBT-based resources with 5 student-friendly characters to help students improve self-awareness, self-management, social skills, and decision making. © Social Emotional Workshop 2017, revised 2019
Yep! Just like the title says, I've been working on a rapid reset for our elementary school of about 565 kids. This year, due to the fact ...
As a school based counselor, I have to admit that I’ve always been a little jealous of classroom teachers. While I have absolutely LOVED my role, I’ve always wished that things were a little more… clear . My husband taught math for 10 years, and like many other classroom teachers, he had a
Counseling Lessons to Rock Your Second Semester: My 2nd Semester of school counseling lessons and activities. This post explains what I did in my building before, during, and at the end of the second semester. Keep reading to find out more about each of my lessons and activities!
10 unique student check-in activities to find out what students are feeling and thinking about school. Pick one or two that work for you whether you want to do feelings check-ins, goal check-ins, or some other sort of daily check-in. Works great in elementary, middle, or high school.
I.LOVE. my job. Read that again. LOVE. As in, LOVE IT! The students, the parents, the staff, the admin. I love every bit of it. Let me tell you why….. A little while ago (oh, about 8 months ago), I took the leap from elementary counseling into the unchartered-for-me world of middle school counseling. I’d […]
Use this list of free resources to use as social emotional learning activities to help you work with kids and young adults. As a special educator for 10 years, I can say without a doubt that we need more social emotional learning supports for kids and young adults. Some of my best days in the classr
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.
Recently a reader reached ask out to ask if I had any suggestions for getting and staying organized through internship. I do! I certainly wish I was more organized but I would love to share with yo…
The back to school season is upon us. This year, however, things are going to look a little different. These 3 back to school counseling lessons for 2020 are perfect for helping your students process their feelings COVID-19 pandemic and providing support as we move into the school year. The lessons
Need to Succeed Bulletin Board Digital Download with everything that you need for it! This set includes letters for the titles, handouts for students, board accessories and the cover sheets for each section. This board includes handouts for students that cover test anxiety, stress, study skills, organization, time management, growth mindset, learning styles, and setting goals. If you want any color differences or have any comments, please feel free to contact me and we can work on it! This board was created by a school counselor and for all schools and school counselors who are in charge of bulletin boards! This board is great for both middle school and high school. In order to make sure you are receiving the best content to help your students I have created a Google Drive link in which you can access updated versions of the handouts in this set. This Google Drive link will be messaged to you at the moment any changes are made!
If you work with children, I can promise you that you will come across at least one student that has these difficult behaviors. Not only are they really stressful for the teacher but they impact the student’s life in many ways. Behaviors like disrespect and defiance can make classroom's chaotic.
Download a free school counseling needs assessment to get the ball rolling on your curriculum map for classroom guidance lessons!
One of the things I've gotten fairly established at this point is my first session of individual counseling with students. Here's 4 of my go to activities.
Check out this FREE list of 101 coping skills for kids! Help children manage stress with these effective self-regulation coping tools.
Google Docs for School Counselor Organization As a school counselor, I love using Google Docs to help organize my work life. Last year, as a new school counselor, I began creating docs to organize my schedule, small groups, goals, and more! I referred to the docs often throughout the school year and am thrilled to be able to use them again this year. The best thing about Google Docs is that you can easily make a copy and then tweak them for the following school year. In this post, I will share 6 Google Docs that you can tweak for your own use. How to Use Shared Docs All of the docs below are Shared Docs. Customize them to meet your needs by following these steps: 1) Open the doc by clicking on the image below 2) Click on "Make a Copy" 3) Rename your doc 4) Customize! Classroom Counseling Sign-Up Form Do you schedule monthly lessons with your teachers? The doc below will help you gather quick info to make scheduling a breeze. Before sending this doc to teachers, I type their names on the left side of the doc and color code them by grade level. Then, I share the doc with my staff and ask them to type in their two preferred days and times for me to do my classroom counseling lessons. This form helps SO much with scheduling because I can almost always choose a preferred time for each teacher. Classroom Counseling Schedule Once teachers have chosen their preferred days/times, I schedule classroom lessons for the first semester. On average, I see each classroom once a month. Scheduling lessons for an entire semester allows me to get everything written down in my planner well in advance. Then, I can plan individual check-ins, small groups, and meetings around the classroom lessons. This form is organized the same way as the sign-up form. If you want to create a page for the second semester, simply copy and paste the chart onto the next page. Character Traits Plan Last year, I based my monthly classroom lessons on character traits. This next doc was a lifesaver! On the first page of the doc, I made a chart for all of the traits I planned on teaching about in my classroom lessons. Throughout the school year, when I thought of a great idea, I added them to the chart as a way to collect my ideas. The second page of the doc is where the magic happened. For each character trait, I made a chart of how I planned on teaching the topic in every grade level. This was very helpful because I was able to see how my lessons built upon each other and got more complex in each grade level! Small Group Schedule and Lesson Plans Up next is a doc that I made for scheduling and planning my small groups. The first page of the doc shows you how I organized my small groups. I made a page like this for every grade level. Whenever I went to pick up students for a small group, I took this page with me so I would not forget anyone! I also made a copy of this page for each classroom teacher to give them easy access to the dates, times, and students in their grade level's small groups. I used the second page of the doc to create lesson plans for each small group. At the top of the doc, I wrote measurable goals for the group. On the right side, I typed in each student's name and used an "X" to keep track of their attendance at each group session. The rest of the doc was used for lesson planning. Since I used this as a digital doc, I could easily move items around in my lesson plan if I did not get to them each week. Yearly Counseling Tasks Do you have trouble remember what tasks you need to complete each month? Me too. I made the next doc to help me remember my reoccurring monthly tasks. For example, every August, I will need to prepare my new student folders. In September, I will need to organize my bullying awareness lessons. In October, I will need to plan for Red Ribbon Week. And so on :) Last school year, I used this doc to list each monthly task and then used the strikethrough feature when the task was complete. At the end of the school year, I turned all of the text back to normal and will re-use this form again this school year! Counseling Goals The last doc I am sharing today is my counseling goals doc. At the beginning of the school year, I came up with several long term and short term goals. The long term goals are my "bucket list" items (ex: getting a therapy dog)!! The short term goals are items I planned on accomplishing during the school year. I shared this doc with my administrator so he could see what goals I was working on. Follow the directions on the doc to learn how to turn checkboxes into checkmarks to keep track of your goals! I hope you found all of these docs helpful! Leave a comment with your favorite docs or tell me about what kind of docs you would love me to create. I would be happy to share more docs in the future! Stay Organized this School Year Looking for more ways to stay organized this school year? I love helping other counselors with organization! Check out some of my favorite resources below. Everything you need to document your sessions and stay organized! -Intake & Progress Notes Forms -Check In Form -Student Schedule Form -Small Group Lesson Template -Counseling Referral Forms -Phone Call Log -Meeting Notes & Notes Page -Weekly To Do List -And more! My School Counselor Planner is a practical, ink-saving weekly planner for documenting sessions, lessons, meetings, and more! Each two-page spread contains a weekly view for you to document your daily events. The day is divided into 15 minute intervals (7:00-4:00) with additional space to record events before and after school. My planner has free yearly updates! Interested in the documentation pack AND the planner? Check out my BUNDLE to save $$$. If you love using Google Drive to keep you organized, check out the resource above. It contains 70 Google Slides files to help you organize your school year! If you are new to my blog, please take a moment to follow me for more school counselor organization tips and creative lesson ideas!
Restorative practices in elementary schools are incredible, but they look a little different than in the secondary levels.
As a special education teacher, there have been hundreds of times I have had to have conversations with parents about their child and characteristics we are seeing at school that are consistent with ADHD or Autism. Some of these conversations were harder than others, but they were never personal until I sat on the receiving ... Read More about Parent and Teacher Guide to Approaching an ADHD Diagnosis for Children in School
