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!

SMART CHOICES

Let’s Celebrate the Family Table

SEPTEMBER IS NATIONAL FAMILY MEALS MONTH AND THE FAMILY TABLE IS A NATIONAL INITIATIVE CREATED TO ENCOURAGE FAMILIES TO TAKE THE TIME TO EAT TOGETHER.  THE NATIONAL CENTER ON ADDICTION AND SUBSTANCE ABUSE AT COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY HAS FOUND THAT THE MORE OFTEN KIDS EAT DINNER WITH THEIR FAMILIES, THE LESS LIKELY THEY ARE TO ENGAGE IN RISKY BEHAVIOR.

 SHARE WITH US HOW YOUR FAMILY CELEBRATES THE FAMILY TABLE, SEPTEMBER 21-28.  SUBMIT A PHOTO OF YOUR FAMILY EATING TOGETHER AND YOU MAY WIN A GIFT CARD FOR GROCERIES!  WINNERS WILL BE ANNOUNCED ON SEPTEMBER 29 VIA FACEBOOK AND NOTIFIED BY EMAIL.

 CATEGORIES ELIGIBLE TO WIN INCLUDE: MOST CREATIVE, MOST FAMILY MEMBERS, AND MOST GENERATIONS.  SUBMIT YOUR PHOTO TO COURTNEY@DRUGEDUCATION.ORG.  PHOTOS MAY BE SHARED ON SOCIAL MEDIA.

Kindness

 

What a great book!

Students listened to and watched this book being read on YouTube. 

Click here for the video.

After the book, we talked about bucket fillers and bucket dippers. I used this chart that I found and saved on my Pinterest page.

We ended our lesson with an activity where two students held little tin buckets. One represented Bucket Fillers and the other represented Bucket Dippers. I printed examples of both types of behaviors that I found on Pinterest and students sorted each into the correct bucket.

September is Attendance Awareness Month!

 

 

Click here for attendance awareness handouts! 

This website has awesome resources for attendance awareness. I share one of their handouts with parents when meeting about excessive absences. Click on the link above, scroll down to click on the "Families and Parents" tab, and click on "Parent Handout" to access the one I share. Then roam around the site and discover all the tips and facts about poor attendance. Very interesting!

When Life Gives You Lemons...

We had so much fun introducing ourselves to new students and reminding everyone else who we are and what we do! 

We started the lesson with a cute video showing babies eating lemons for the first time.  

Click here to see the video.

Then, we talked about how the babies probably thought the lemons tasted sour. We could tell by the faces they were making!

This lead into a discussion about how sometimes in life we experience things that seem "sour," some more so than others. Students gave examples of "lemons" in life (both at home and at school) and helped us determine if the lemon was a one lemon or two lemon kind of problem.  Each time an example was given, a student had to hold those lemons. Eventually, the lemons began to fall to the floor which sparked a discussion about how we are not meant to hold onto the lemons. As students gave suggestions for who we can talk to about life's lemons, classmates began to take lemons from the student. Of course, their school counselors were listed as someone to talk to!

We ended our lesson with a funny video of all their teachers eating lemons. (I would have posted the video, but I didn't want to create any lemons for myself!) Ha! Ha!