Mrs. Kennedy's Counseling Corner

Time is really flying by and I am having trouble keeping up with the blog! The schedule gets really hectic around school this time of year and with only three weeks between Thanksgiving Break and Winter Break, we are all feeling the craziness! This will be a post to fill you in on what you have missed and what we have coming.

Since the last post the kids and I have started talking about safety. We learned that at school we prepare for all kinds of situations so that we always know how to be safe. We practice for bad weather, fire, intruders etc. We talked about how we hope these things never happen, and they don't happen very often but when they do we can feel more comfortable because we have practiced and know just what we should be doing. In 3rd grade we watched a game show type video where the kids played along on white boards answering safety questions and keeping score. In 4th grade we watched a video called If You Feel Danger and the kids completed a handout in which they had to think about a time when they made unsafe choices and then identify what they should have done instead. In 5th grade students watched the Out of the Danger Zone video Mrs. Lenz's class watched a couple of months ago.

This year I have implemented a Positive Behavior Incentive program the kids refer to as the "Happy Cup/ Sad Cup." Ask them about it, they can tell you what it is all about. All of my current 3-5th grade classes earned their first positive behaviors reward at the same time so we celebrated last week by watching a "non-counselor movie" as they put it;) They were all thrilled and encouraged to start earning positive behavior points toward their next incentive.

This week we are having our Abuse Prevention lessons much like we had for K-2 earlier in the year. Parents should have received a pink note from me after they viewed the material and we had our discussion. Please contact me if you have any questions. There is one class left to watch the video and have the lesson (Miss Tedrow's 4th grade) and they will have it tomorrow.

After we finish up Abuse Prevention we are moving into Kindness and Self-Esteem.

I will try to add some photos of our busy times here at school but I know that lately I have been so busy I forget to take pictures during class! I think I have a few though:)

Happy Holidays!