2nd Grade Kindness Lesson

2nd Grade students learned about Kindness this week. 

We started with a very short Kindness Video.

This video leads into a great discussion of how Kindness is a choice and when you choose to be kind to someone, you choose to plant a seed that grows and is spread to others.

Then we read the book  Have You Filled a Bucket Today? by Carol McCloud.

Following the book, we do a Bucket Fillers, Bucket Dippers activity where students are given actions printed on paper and they must decided if it is an example of a Bucket Filler or Bucket Dipper. Sitting next to each bucket is an apple. I use these apples to do an activity I found on Pinterest. 

At the end of our lesson, we complete Bucket Filler, Bucket Dipper anchor charts for them to hang in their classrooms.

 

 

Counselor's Office 2016-17

 Big move this year into the main office!

I actually have an office instead of a classroom. 

(More on how I feel about this at the end of this post.)

The first thing I had to do was make it look a little more kid friendly.

 These colorful "BE" words and tree with lights were just what this wall needed!

This area has all of my calm-down tools, games, Play-doh, balls...

The blue treasure chest has treasures for our PBIS program.

 

 This area houses my books, separated by topics. The clear plastic trays on the shelf have kinetic sand in them. I recommend this for every counseling office! It's fun to play with, but also very relaxing. 

The basket has several Emoji pillows I bought from Wal-Mart for less than $5 each. 

Inside the drawer on this table are drawing paper, crayons, and markers. Under the table are puzzles. A new addition to my office this year is the Lite-Brite! I'm always looking for different things for the kids to do while we talk.

So, my feelings on moving into the main office...

I've discovered that I love it! Now that I don't have my own classroom, I travel from room to room for whole group lessons. I love that, too!

I still have a large closet down by my old classroom that I was able to turn into a small group room.

The best part is when the principal or front office ladies need me, I don't have to walk all the way across the school to get to them. Life is Good, for sure!

2016-17 FES Peer Helpers

These students were nominated by their 2nd or 3rd Grade teachers to be a part of our Peer Helper Program. This means that they possess stand-out leadership qualities, are respectful, friendly, helpful, and choose to be kind! They will spend this year learning The 7 Habits of Happy Kids by Steven Covey. They will also lead our school in Red Ribbon activities, a canned food drive benefiting Ecumenical Ministries, and a special project with our Red Ribbon Leader.

Meet the Counselor 2016

2nd Grade:

After sharing a slideshow with students that included who I am, 

a picture of my family and our favorite place - THE BEACH!, 

a picture of my office, 

and our Give Me 5 poster, 

I was ready to read Mrs. Joyce Gives the Best High-Fives. 

This book is a great resource to help explain what a school counselor does. Students learned that their school counselor is like their adult friend. They also learned the counselor's office is a safe place and what they say in my office, stays in my office. We ended our lesson with students creating their best high-fives on construction paper. I took those high-fives and created a display with them. (Picture of that display later in this post.)

3rd Grade:
 I shared the same personal information with 3rd grade students, but instead of reading the book, we had a presentation that highlighted all the things mentioned in the book. We took time to do some thinking about ourselves during the lesson. Students answered the following three questions on sticky notes. I will use them when I do my mini meetings. 

 

One of the things the counselor can help with is figuring out how to manage all of those unique feelings everyone has. We ended with students tracing their hands and choosing a "feelings" word to write inside the palm. I then combined their handprints with 2nd grade's handprints to create a display in our hallway.

FES Counseling Brochure

FES Counseling Brochures are going home with students as I visit their classroom for our "Meet the Counselor" lesson. Boy has the number of views for my blog increased since sending these home!

 

Thanks to Mrs. Crabtree's Counseling Corner at crabtreecounseling.blogspot.com/?m=1 for the template. It sure helped me get started!