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.