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!

SNEAK PEEK!!

I will write about what we are doing this week and right after break when we come back but the kids are so stinking cute I can't help but give you a sneak peek! Here are some photos from the past couple of days to hold you over until the New Year!

Mrs. Lampe's Sunflowers

Ms. Weber's Cuties

Ms. Chostner's Class Hard at Work

Mrs. Swopes Kiddos

Kindness is like a boomerang! Have you ever thought about that? That is what we have been talking about in Counselor this week. The kids and I have been having WONDERFUL conversations about acts of kindness and how important it is to think of others and what they might be needing or wanting. We talked about how when you do something kind for another person, many times that kindness comes back around and is shown to you. We talked about the motivation to do kind things for others and how hopefully we are motivated by wanting to help where help is needed or wanting others to feel good when we feel good or have someone to talk to when they might not be feeling so great. We discussed that when we do a kind deed hoping for something in return we miss the point a little bit. The kids watched the clip below to illustrate how kindness comes back around like a boomerang.

Kindness Boomerang

We also read the book The Giving Tree by Shell Silverstein and talked about how at first glance/read we might think the little boy in the story is quite selfish, always taking from the tree and never giving anything in return. When we talked about it a little more though, we realized the tree never expected anything in return and if we looked really closely, the only time the tree was sad was when the boy wasn't around. He always came back and therefore he gave her his friendship, his loyalty, his time (not all of it) and his love. Some of the best things we can give might not be seen at first glance but hopefully they will be felt. The kids made apples with a kind deed they could do  that wouldn't cost any money between now and January 6 when we come back from break. We added the apples to the Giving Tree bulletin board outside my office.

When everyone finished they had a chance to practice throwing our "kindness boomerang" to illustrate the concept of our kindness being thrown out into the world and coming back to us. Fun was had by all:)

I hope everyone has a safe and fun winter break! See you in 2014!

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!

3rd grade playing along

3rd grade game show

4th grade safety activity

 4th grade safety activity



 

I Got behind! Parent Teacher conferences were last week and that is usually about the time I start getting behind! I apologize for the delay in blog posts! I have now switched to working with 3rd through 5th graders and we began by talking about Friendship last week. In third grade we took a Friendship Voyage on the smart board learning important lessons about making and keeping friends. In fourth we learned How to Lose All Your Friends and discussed the qualities we look for in friends and what qualities we should posess as friends. The kids had fun with a friendship word find competition as well! In Ms. Stewart's fifth grade class we talked about how sometimes we might be friends with people who make us uncomfortable. We read the book Sorry! and learned the difference between sincere and insincere apologies. We discussed the difficulties that come along with wanting to feel "cool" and making good choices. I only took 1 picture that week! Here, Ms. Tedrow's class works on thier friendship word find.

This week we have moved on to talking about feelings. In 3rd grade we are discussing worries and how we can sometimes make them worse when we dwell on them. We are reading Is a Worry Worrying You and the kids are designing their worry monsters and thinking of creative ways to get rid of their worries. In 4th grade we talked about how most of the time when we are worried about something it is because of a problem. We discussed how some problems are "Rock Problems" and some problems are "Clay" problems. Things like not getting your homework done, or having a poor attitude or fighting with a friend are clay problems. You are in control of them, you have the power to change them etc. One's parents getting a divorce or what teacher you have or where you live are examples of rock problems. No matter how much we think about them, worry about them or wish they were different we do not have the power to change or control those problems. Instead we must find ways of coping with them and leave our worries behind. We read Wilma Jean the Worry Machine and learned how to take control of our worries. In fifth grade we talked about anger. We read the book Soda Pop Head and learned that anger is usually a secondary emotion and underneath it often is a fear or a worry. We learned some ways we can keep our cool and not blow our tops when we get angry. The children wrote about taking a "mental vacation" and thinking about a relaxing environment/ daydream to get them through angry moments.

Great books to use for worry and anger!

 

3rd graders drawing what their "worry monsters" would look like and how they would get rid of them

 

5th graders making a list of "mental vacation spots" and drawing their favorite one

 

Last week flew by because we did not have school Friday. I headed to the Missouri School Counselor Association's fall conference in Tan-Tara over the weekend and returned to school today and knew I needed to catch up on our Counseling Corner! This year I was asked to present at the conference so that was a bit different than my typical experience. While I was not presenting,  I enjoyed learning about many important issues school counselors and students face and have returned feeling a renewed energy and passion for our Midway eaglets:)

Here's what happened last week!

All grades were working on Problem Solving and learned the Stop Think and Choose model. Each class had separate activites including coloring their own reminder sheets for Stop Think and Choose.

 

Here is a picture from Kindergarten

 

Here is one from first grade with my Practicum Student explaining the steps to Problem Solving.

I didn't get a photo from second grade or Ms. Lenz's fifth grade class this week.  Shame on me. 5th Graders had actually earned a celebration for good behavior so they watched a video and will learn about problem solving this week. On Monday, November 11, I will be switching to grades 3-5 and will have Ms. Stewart's 5th grade class (Lenz's will switch to Media Center). I will include a photo of the staff after the fall parties on Thursday last week. Hope you all have been appreciating the Autumn beauty lately!

Have a great week!

 







This week we finished up our abuse prevention lessons and moved on in to talking about Diversity. In Kindergarten we read the book, The Crayon Box that Talked and talked about ways that we are the same and different in our class. We explored how our differences are what make us unique and we all decided that life would be pretty boring if we were all the same! The children then drew self-portraits on crayons, decorated their crayons and we put them all in a big crayon box and marveled at how beautifully different each crayon was and how that made our project more interesting! My practicum student helped out and showed the children a clip from Sesame Street in which Elmo and Whoopie notice differences in their skin, fur and hair.

 

 

In first grade we read the book The Skin You Live In, and we noticed all the beautiful shades of skin we could see in the classroom. The book compares skin colors to different types of foods so for our activity the children selected a food that reminded them of their skin and drew self portraits incorporating the food in some way. They also explained why the food they chose reminded them of their skin.

 

In second grade we talked about what it means to be or feel different. We wondered if it was a good or bad thing. We read the book Odd Velvet and decided that it can be a wonderful thing to be different and different does not always mean weird! The children had fun writing two little known facts about themselves on a piece of paper and then sitting in a circle and guessing which fact belonged to which person. We learned a lot about one another!

In Ms. Lenz's fifth grade we again discussed how we are the same and how we are different. We explored what it means to feel different and how we can help someone who might feel bad about their differences. We read the book The Boy Who Grew Flowers and the kids had fun working in pairs learning how they were similar and different from their peers.

Hope you all have a great weekend!