The kids and I have been plugging away since we came back from winter break and I think we are looking forward to our three day weekend coming up! It is hard getting back into the swing of things sometimes! We are doing it though. So in the last post you saw my little sunflower cuties. We talked about self-esteem before winter break and unfortunately because of the two snow days when we returned only half the classes got those lessons! In third grade we read the adorable book Stand Tall Molly Lou Melon and talked about ways in which we were all special and unique. The kids made sunflowers and wrote something unique about them on each petal. They were all quite proud as they should be! (check out the photos from the last post)

In fourth grade we read the beautiful book, Wings about Ikarus Jackson, a new kid in town with an impressive set of wings. The other kids didn't find them so impressive though and treated him badly because he was different. We talked about how our differences make us special and unique and there is no one exactly like us in the world. The kids decorated their own set of wings showing their interests and hobbies.

Fifth grade didn't meet that week due to snow:(

The next topic we covered in Counselor was bullying. In third grade we read The Juice Box Bully and talked about how awesome our school would be if we all promised to take care of ourselves, eachother and our classroom like the kids in the book did. We agreed to not be bystanders if we see others getting bullied. We can do this by not participating in activities that involve teasing, by standing up for others if they do not have the courage to stand up for themselves and by making a choice to include everyone and make everyone feel welcome. The kids made flowers for a classroom kindness garden. The flowers were adorned with anti-bullying messages and pictures.

 

 

In fourth grade we read the book Just Kidding and talked about how humor is a great thing but sometimes it can cross a line and become bullying. Teasing can be an example of this. We learned the teasing dos and don'ts and played a game in which the students paired up and one person read a tease card to the other and the person getting teased had to use humor to diffuse the situation. The only rule was that what you said back to the teaser couldn't be mean. So for example the teaser might call someone "four eyes" and then that person could say, "You are right, wearing glasses is like having an extra set of eyes. Thanks for noticing." You can imagine the fun the children had with this game;)

 

In fifth grade the kids watched a video called Real Kids, What I Learned about Bullying. They heard stories from both kids who were bullied and kids who had been bullies themselves. The video addresses why some kids bully and how one can seek help if he is being bullied. The kids always have such wonderful discussion on this topic. They enjoyed working on a bullying crossword puzzle and watched a music video created by a high school in which the whole school participated to send a powerful message. They loved it and we decided we need to do something like that here! I will include the video below!

 

This week we have moved on to talking about Diversity. In all classes we noticed ways we were the same and ways we were different and talked about the importance of having all kinds of people in this world. The kids always have really great discussions on this topic as well. We talked about how even though we know differences are a good thing and they are what make us special and unique, too often people are still treated poorly or unfairly because of thier differences. We talked about how often the treatment stems from uncomfortable feelings because we don't understand something. We discussed appropriate ways to ask people about their differences to show that we are interested rather than making them feel as though their difference is a negative thing.

 

In third grade we read Spaghetti in a Hotdog Bun and made magic glasses that when worn help you to understand how others are feeling in any given situation. I gave the students different scenarios and they told me how the different people might have felt in each situation. The glasses were a hit!

 

 

In fourth grade we watched the movie version of the Dr. Seuss book, The Sneetches. The kids all noticed immediately how this story illustrated what we had been talking about right away. There were star bellied sneetches and plain bellied sneetches and the star bellied sneetches didn't allow the plain bellies to participate in thier activities etc. You can check it out on Youtube if you are curious. We discussed how students can be like sneetches sometimes.

 

 

 

In fifth grade we read The Boy Who Grew Flowers as was mentioned in an earlier post when Mrs. Lenz's class had this lesson.

 

Phew, I am all caught up! I have one more class with each 3-5 group and then I switch back to K-2. Hope you all have a wonderful weekend!