Spring is here!

Well, today is the first day of Spring! I sure wish the weather would cooperate! We have been plugging away in Counselor over the last few weeks. Since I last wrote we talked about Careers for two weeks and are finishing up with Empathy.

In K-5 we discussed the six career paths and the types of jobs that fall into them. The 6 career paths are Fixing & Building, Business, Nature, Creative, Health & Helping. After we learned them all we started thinking about what we might like to be and how our hobbies and interests might help us decide. In Kindergarten we read Oh the Places You'll Go by Dr. Suess and the kids made some adorable Hot Air Balloons saying what they wanted to be when they grow up. We put Ms. Windmiller's class up on my bulletin board but I ran out of room so Mrs. Creasy's class just got to take theirs home. They turned out so cute and the kids got to practice writing which is always good!

  

In first grade we read When I Grow Up by Al Yankovic (yes Weird Al) and the kids loved it! It helps let the children know that there are so many possibilities out there and it is great to explore all of those options and that they don't need to know exactly what they want to be when they are in first grade! They got to play some games on the ipad that went along with the book at the end of class:)

In second grade the kids were thrilled because I assigned them homework....oh wait, that can't be right;) I should say that they were thrilled because I gave them homework to assign to their parents! You're welcome;) When they brought it back we sat in a circle and the kids got to share what one parent does for a living and teach us about what career path that was in and why. They LOVED it and parents, you did a great job too! We forgot to take pictures:(

We then moved on to talking about Empathy and learned that it really is just a fancy word for understanding and caring about other people's feelings. We had Elmo and Mark Ruffalo help us understand in K-1. The kids in Mrs. Redig's class also enjoyed working on a coloring page that accompanied the book. In Kindergarten and 1st grade we played a game called Catch the Kindness in which we threw a ball to a friend and told them one nice thing about them and so on and so on.

We also read the book by Maria Dismondy, The Potato Chip Champ and discussed how the two main characters showed empathy. We read the story aloud together and the students got to be detectives and let me know when they saw Empathy! If you are interested in having your child do the same for you I will include the youtube video of the author reading the book below.

2nd grade read the same book but we played a game in small groups in which the children drew cards that had different scenarios on them, if the scenario was one in which Empathy was shown they moved forward, if not backwards. They had so much fun and they really understood Empathy after they played.

When we get back from Spring Break we are talking about Team Work and then we are pretty much done with Counselor K-2 and Mrs. Lenz's 5th grade. I will be with them for one class period at the end of the school year to go over summer safety. So they will be heading back to Mrs. Sherman in Media Center. I will be with 3-5 (Stewart's 5th graders) for the remainder of the year minus that one week switch. Hope everyone has a safe and relaxing Spring Break!