Happy End of the Year!

Whew! We made it! We waved our kids goodbye as they loaded buses on Friday. Just a couple of post planning days stand in the way of full-blown summer enjoyment! 

In honor of this, I'm having a sale in my TPT store! Everything is 15% off today and tomorrow!

Thinking ahead to next year, does anyone have any great plans or ideas they'd like to share?

End of the Year Sale!

I cannot believe the school year is winding down (at 100 mph!)! In honor of this joyous occasion, I am throwing a sale on TPT today and tomorrow. They are having a teacher appreciation sale, so there will be an extra percentage off for a total of 28% off when you use the code: THANKYOU17.



I hope you all have a wonderful end of the year!

Year End Conflict Resolution

I don't know about you, but my students have a much harder time getting along as the year end approaches. In light of this, I've planned to do conflict resolution lessons this month!

I'm using a really cute story with my K-3 students called, A Bug and a Wish by Karen Scheuer. In this story, one little boy learns how to use the phrase "It BUGS me when you ___________, I WISH you would ____________." I talk with my students after reading the book about the importance to talking to others when there is a problem vs. letting the problem stew and get worse. Sometimes people don't realize they've upset them, or that what they do bothers them. That's why they have to talk about it! We go through several examples of problems they may have with others and put it into the phrase above. After I feel they've got it, they get a coloring page or a small bookmark to color with a lady bug on it.


For my older ones, I'm doing a similar lesson, but they are learning about "I messages," which I like to think of as more grown up version of "A Bug and a Wish." In the PowerPoint you can find on my TPT store, there are three videos from the Olive Branch where to cartoon characters have a conflict. We talk about how they resolved to conflict and what other options they could have tried. We also practice using I messages, which are elaborated on in the PowerPoint. My older students have a HUGE problem talking to each other about problems. They'd rather let it simmer and explode later, or talk to everyone else not involved. I've been working with several about changing that and I'm hoping these lessons help reinforce the importance of talking to each other to all of them!

What lessons and materials do you use for conflict resolution? I'd love to hear some new ideas!

Motivating Students Lesson

State testing is right around the corner. Am I the only one with students who check out after spring break?!? 
Due to this checking out coupled with upcoming testing, this month's lessons focus on being motivated and setting goals! This lesson goes hand in hand with last month's lesson on careers, which I refer to often in these lessons (especially my 4th-6th graders).

For my K-1 students, I do a lesson and activity much like I did last year. See here.

For 2-3 We talk about setting SMART goals and go through several examples. This does go over several of their heads, but I believe it's important for them to at least hear it even if the understanding comes later. Many of them do catch on and do well!

For my older ones, we do the same thing, learn about and practice setting SMART goals. But before we do that, I try to motivate them to not give up and to work hard. I use a power point that has several people that had to work very hard to get where they are. These are people who failed or faced obstacles. There's a few they all know and some they don't. We talk about how it is okay to fail, but not to give up. Many of my students will have to work hard to have a better life, so I want to expose them to people who made it.

The powerpoint for older students and all the SMART goal sheets I use are available in my TPT store. There is also a discounted bundle with both!

Career/Job Lessons

I started a new round of lessons recently. This round the topic is careers! In Georgia, we have certain lessons on career clusters that are required each year. Our teachers teach these, so I've been unsure of what to do for a career lesson that won't interfere with the state mandated lessons.
I decided to focus on their jobs right now, coming to school and doing their best. We talk a little about different types of careers, but the focus is on what they are learning right now will help them get to be whatever they decide they want to be.

For my youngest ones, I read When I Grow Up by Al Yankovic. In this book, Billy is telling his class all about ALL the things he wants to be when he grows up, which is a lot of things. It is a really cute book and my students love it. I allow them to color a picture with what they want to be when they grow up.

For my 2nd and 3rd graders, I also read the book and we play career bingo. They love it! I got my bingo boards from here. She has another version too that I have not used yet, which you can get here. 

For my older students, 4th-6th, I want them to start connecting education to standard of living, so we do a lesson on careers and money. Each student get a randomly assigned job that is paired with the level of education needed. The more education you have, the more money you earn. I included some trade school jobs to emphasize that not all students may go to college, but some sort of continuing education will be needed. They they get to choose what they want in the form of bills. Do they want an apartment or a house? Do they want to have a nice cable package or internet or a cell phone? Would they like to go out to eat a lot? What about going to a movie or a concert once in a while? It really helps them see that luxuries aren't something those without a diploma often get to have. I've included a few snippets from the lesson below. 

Click here to get an editable version of the Careers and Money lesson, and here for a non-editable version (that's a couple of dollars cheaper!). The lesson includes the worksheets, the power point, and the job cards!

What tools do you use for career lessons? What activities do your students love?

NSCW 2017

Last week was a very crazy week for this counselor, but I did celebrate National School Counseling Week! First, I hung posters up in the hall for the week with reminders of what a school counselor does and what I can help with.
I also wanted to do something fun and special for the staff of my school. They are wonderful and very supportive of my work. I saw this on Pinterest and fell in love with the idea!

My teachers are very competitive with each other, so this was perfect for them. They really got into it and I had several guesses written down. For a prize, I donated a bottle of hand sanitizer to the winner for their room/area that was filled with legos. You can never have enough hand sanitizer, especially with all the sickness going around right now!

All of my activities and posters were Lego themed, and were centered around the image below. I found this image online and it is not any creation of my own and I do not own any rights to it. I printed this image out and put it on the hand sanitizer bottle one of my teachers won! 

TPT SALE!

Good news! There's a sitewide sale on TPT starting tomorrow. It will run Feb. 7-8, 2017. You can get up to 28% off any participating store's product.

Creative Counsel is participating, so head on over to check out sale prices starting tomorrow!

Welcome Back to Lessons!

After a glorious 12 weeks at home with my new bundle of joy, I am back at work and getting back into the swing of things! Of course I have a mound of work to get caught up on, but this week I resume lessons. 

This month we are focusing on bullying and being bucket fillers as a way to combat bullying. I love the book Have You Filled a Bucket Today?! 

I begin each lesson by discussing the difference between a mean kid and bully. I tell them bullies are mean every single day for weeks, not just once or twice. I tell them bullies are big deals that we need help with. I also tell them they can try to solve problems with mean kids first (because it still upsets us when someone is mean only one time) by telling them to stop or playing elsewhere. 

Then I begin to tell them that a great way to stop bullies and mean kids a like is to be a bucket filler. We read the book and then do a developmentally appropriate activity based on grade. I do this with ALL my students K-6!
See this post for our bucket filling adventures from last year. And visit my TPT store to get a copy of the activity sheets I use for each level.

What other lessons work well with combating bullying? What do you use at your school?

Intros Pt. 2 16-17

Whew! I have been a busy school counselor! I have been working through the remainder of my intro lessons for this year and trying to get to as many students as I can before my maternity leave begins. I have about 2.5 weeks left!

Due to my pregnant state, I have taken my intro lessons easier this year. See this post for my younger lesson. For my 2nd-6th graders, I've used the same power point with a developmentally appropriate activity to go along with it. It uses true/false statements to review what a school counselor does. Many of the statements are true, but some are false, and some are just not things a counselor helps with in most cases. 

I've been pleased to note how much my students remember about what a school counselor does! Last year was like starting fresh with my students. My predecessor did little to no classroom lessons, so many had no idea who she was or what she did. I started out aiming to fix that. This year I thought they might need to be retaught, but many of them remembered all the ways I can help!

I love doing an intro lesson as my first lesson, though. It gives new students the opportunity to learn what I do and it never hurts to review with my returning students. My favorite part of these lessons, though, is the activity. I give the students an opportunity to tell me what they'd like to talk to me about. While I get a lot of "no" written, cute pictures, and genuine love, I do get many requests to talk about things. Often things they really need to process that I had no idea about! For the older ones, I also give them a chance to tell me what they need this year. What do they hope to learn? What do they need to be successful? 

How do you like to start off the year at your school? What lessons/topics work well for your students?

Check out my TPT store for this power point as well as the developmentally appropriate activity sheet where the students tell me what they want to talk about. 

Tattling Again!

Last year, my tattling lesson was such a big hit with my kindergarten teachers that half of them requested the lesson again on my start of the year needs assessment. All of them said they wanted it again when I asked if they were all interested. I do their intro lessons a week before everyone else so I can do the tattling lesson for their regularly scheduled lesson time. It works out great, and they are loving it again this year! Tattling is something most younger grades struggle with, so hopefully this lesson helps with that. 

Click the link above for the lesson. The beauty of kindergarten is how easy it is to repeat a lesson. I pulled everything from last year out of the filing cabinet this morning before the first lesson. All I had to do was make copies of the coloring page and I was ready to start! 
This year I did simplify the lesson some and left the "five B's" out and tried to focus on emergencies and getting hurt as seen in the post it cards. The post it cards are the biggest hit with kids and teachers. The kids love the participation. The teachers love the examples. By the end of the lesson, they seem to understand some much better what's an emergency (a BIG deal) and what isn't! I also reused the post-it notes, which have lost a good bit of their sticky, so I took two small containers to put under the faces on the board instead of having the kids try to stick them to the board (which I found a lot of our boards had trouble with anyway). 

K-1 Intro Lessons 16-17

In an effort to complete my intro lessons before our bundle of joy arrives, I am getting started on those this week!

This year for K-1, I'm recycling part of last year's lesson. Normally I use The Rainbow Fish to teach this, but this year I didn't want to bend over with the cards so much with my rather large belly. So, I opted to adapt last year's 2nd and 3rd intro lesson for kindergarten!

I'm using the exact same power point from last year that I used with my 2nd and 3rd grade. These images are very similar to the one from my Rainbow Fish lesson. I always hesitate to use power points for my youngest students, but they've done very well with it so far! I go through the power point and talk about all the ways I can help them at the school using the images. At the end, they receive a coloring page that I created myself based on this lesson. They get to keep these to remember all the ways a school counselor can help them at school! 

The power point is available for FREE in my TPT store. This worksheet is also available in my TPT store and is my own original creation.

Lesson Sign-Ups

As I mentioned in this post, my teachers did so well this year at signing up for a time for me to visit their rooms this year. Only a handful didn't on their own. This year the process was much smoother for my teachers and I want to share how it worked at my school.

Last year, I used signupgenius.com for signing up.

I had a supervisor who recommended this when I was in internship. While I like this site, my school really needs a sign up for a day of the week and time, not a specific day of the month. I could not figure out a way for this on signupgenius.com, so we had much confusion last year on when their lessons actually were even though I supply them a calendar specifically for lessons.

This year in an effort to eliminate this confusion, I used a simple Google Sheet from Google Drive. I had several time slots over every day of the week to give teachers several options. This really seem to like this better. This was originally a template I found through Google, found here. I just changed it to suit my needs and made it in our school colors. Having made this now, I bet I could have made this on my own without the need for a template. After they all had a time, I just put two or three, up to four, a day through the month. With only two time slots for each time each day, it was very easy to spread it out over a month. 

(Click to make image bigger!)

A few of my teachers were just amazed that they could sign up and it would immediately be there for everyone to see (so no one could take their time). My school is rather large, so this seems to be the simplest way to have them all pick a time for my visits. While this worked well for my school, but every school is different! What do you do to have teachers sign up for a time for classroom lessons? What do your teachers prefer? 

A New Year

Our school is off to a great start this year! Our students returned this past Tuesday and we are having a great first week.

I have been busy getting ready for the year while allowing for the students I check in with to get settled into their new rooms and new routines! This year I am planning on doing five lessons. I will miss part of the year due to maternity leave. I'm excited for our new little one! But I'm also excited for a new year with my students.
I will begin my lessons starting next week in hopes of getting through my introductory lessons before my maternity leave starts in late October. My teachers were so great about signing up for a time this year! I'll do a post soon on what I did differently this year that seemed to work better for my staff. 

For this year, I plan to do the following for my lesson topics:

1. Intro to the Counselor
2. Bucket Filling (with a discussion about bullying)
3. Careers and Money
4. Motivation and Responsibility
5. Conflict Resolution

Be on the lookout for posts on details for each of these lessons in the months I do them! I also plan to do my tattling lesson from last year for my kindergartners. This one was a big hit with the kids and the teachers.

I've uploaded several new resources to my TPT store for this coming year, and plan to add a few more. If you're interested in any of these topics, most of my new resources are available now.

What big plans do you have for this year? What lesson topics do you plan to use and what resources do you love for those topics? Share the wealth!

Welcome Back!

Welcome back to school, y'all! The system I work for is still on the beautiful system of kids coming back after Labor Day, so we are just picking things up in my school system. 

I know many of you are getting into the full swing of things for this year. Feel free to share any ideas or new programs you are hoping to get off the ground this year! Personally, this year I found I will only be at one school instead of two! :D That will make it much easier to schedule lessons and time for students. I hope to be able to do more groups and individual sessions. I have also been tasked with a bulletin board for parent/student information. I plan to include some attendance facts and some quotes for parents and students.

As I started looking for quotes, I decided I wanted them to be cute and eye catching! So, I made my own with quotes found online! I've decided to share these with all of you. Click here to get a copy from my TPT store. There are 18 quotes in the following seven backgrounds. To celebrate back to school, my entire store is 10% off now through Monday!

Good luck this school year!