It's been awhile

...Hello

It's been awhile but I've been away with good reason. Two months ago I gave birth to a beautiful baby boy!

Now I'm back just in time for No Name Calling Week. No Name Calling Week is January 21-January 25th. What are your ideas for recognising No Name Calling Week?

I will go into the classrooms to give classroom guidance lessons. The No Name Calling website has plenty of free classroom lessons available click here. Once I get organized I will post my lessons titles No Name Calling Week 2013

I also wanted to do something School Wide "The Garden of Kindness" since my schools theme this year is "Watch us Grow" I thought it would be a perfect fit.

Two years ago I read Chrysanthemum to 1st & 2nd grade students. We discussed how the kids in the story made fun of the main character Chrysanthemum's name, how it made them feel and how would they feel if someone made fun of their name. For the activity we discussed put ups and put downs and students created their own name badges and decorated them.


Feel free to share your ideas here.

Happy Counseling!

School Violence Awareness Week

During the week of October 15-19 we observed School Violence Awareness Week (not my favorite title) I met with students during lunches to introduce Stop. Walk. Talk. in an effort to decrease bullying and teach students better ways to deal with conflict.
For more information visit Stop. Walk. Talk

These traffic signal signs were placed in every hallway as a reminder on steps to take when someone is bothering a student or doing something that they do not like



Stop, Walk, and Talk” a 3 step process for responding to problem behavior. The goal of Stop, Walk, and Talk is to provide students with the strategies to both respond to and decrease bullying.

What did the students learn?

Stop

Say the word “Stop” while putting your hand up – palm facing outward. Use a clear voice.

Walk

Walk away if the other person continues bother you. Sometimes, even when students tell others to “stop”, problem behavior will continue. When this happens, students are to "walk away" from the problem behavior

Talk

Talk to your teacher, the principal, the school counselor, your parent/guardian to let them know what happened. Even when students use “stop” and they “walk away” from the problem, sometimes students will continue to behave inappropriately toward them. When that happens, students should "talk" to an adult.

How can you help? You can help by talking to your child about any negative situations/events they encounter in school. Please ask them if they

1. Told the other child to stop

2. If they walked away, and

3. If they talked to an adult.



Week of Respect-Wall Display

Pre-K to Kindergarten: The Crayon Box that Talked


Kindergarten worked on a worksheet "We are Special"

Pre-K colored their very own crayons

1st and 2nd Grade: Sweet Respect

Unfortunately I do not have pictures of me doing this lesson but it was a hands on activity. Will post more on this lesson later!

3rd Grade: Heart-ful Respect

It says, "Before you speak think and be smart, it's hard to fix a wounded heart"

I read the story "Say Something" by Peggy Moss to students, students then were asked to define what is a bully, bystander and target. I then asked students to recall a time when they were a bystander or a target and how that made them feel. I created a big red heart and had students write their name in colorful band-aids as a reminder to the hurt they felt when someone did or said something they did not like. I made that connection that we use band-aids to cover up wounds and sometimes wounds leave scars much like when we say mean things to others it may not hurt as much as time goes by but we always remember

Week of Respect

This week is focused on the Week of Respect in the state of New Jersey. I have planned lessons for grades Pre-K to 3rd. Today I taught lessons to all three grades but I don't yet have pictures of every lesson.

In Pre-K and Kindergarten I  read The Crayon Box that Talked, one of my favorite stories because it helps young studens to underdstand that each of us are unique and we all possess something special

To the left is the part of the display I am going to hang up in the hallway. Click here for the worksheet and click here for the crayon print out.

Pre-K will decorate the crayon anyway they like and Kindergarten used the worksheet.

Newsletter

I was inspired by the Elementary School Counseling web site to do a newsletter. I wanted a nice way to reach out to staff members and communicate helpful hints, information about the counseling department and any other tidbits of information I feel necessary to share. So here is my very first newsletter. I created it using Microsoft Word and then converted it to a PDF file for easy viewing.

October 2012 Newsletter

Feeling Puzzled?

Another Pinterest recreation. Share bulletin boards that you have created for the year.

My Office

 

 

It's coming along....