The Best Reason to Be MIA

If there's any of you that visit my blog on a regular basis and have noticed I haven't posted as often, here's my excuse:

I had my second son at the end of January and while he's really been an easy baby (KNOCK ON ALL THE WOOD), my "spare time" is being spent elsewhere. Still have some posts in the works, just being a little slower!

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Counseling Anchor Charts

Anchor charts: a staple in every elementary classroom. Excellent resources for review and reminder. So why not use them in school counseling too?!

Especially when our Life Skills lessons are skills-based, we like to use anchor charts during our lessons. Now ours aren't the awesome hand-written/drawn kind that are created collaboratively with the students; mostly due to time constraints and partly due to size constraints (teachers don't have room on their walls for their own anchor charts and then all of mine if I used chart paper!). We usually pre-create them, bring them to the classrooms to use during the teaching or application portion of the lesson, and then offer to make/laminate copies (on colored cardstock) for teachers as they want them.

Some of the charts we've created and used (available in a bundle for free here and I'll add to this post when we make more):


Types of Conflict

Problem Size

Kelso's Choices

Talk it Out Sentence Stems

Apologies

Compliment Sentence Stems

Best Effort Thermometer

Reflective Listening

Gossip/Rumors

THINK Before You Speak

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Personal Values Lesson Plan

While the bulk of 4th grade's Life Skills curriculum this year is on positive communication, there's a personal identity/awareness component as well. We kicked off 2017 with a lesson about personal values (with some mention of reputation thrown in). Due to a few scheduling issues, I ended up doing this lesson before the "Staying True to Yourself" (with Ludwig's Sorry!) lesson in some of the classes and after in some others. Both ways were great for tying the lessons together; I haven't decide which way I'll do it next year.

A good friend of mine who is a middle school counselor sent me the link to this lesson that she adapts and uses: Overcoming Obstacles - Clarifying Values

I adapted it even further (to shorten it and to make it more elementary level) and began using it myself. It's fun, it's silly, it's interactive, and it gets their brains going. I'll admit that while the majority of my lessons are skills-based, this one is more "planting the seed" and helping develop some introspection as they prepare to enter the intense and challenging world of middle school.



I use a PPT to facilitate the first half of the lesson. We start with a quick game of  "Would you rather?" - the students either move to the side of the room that goes with their answer or they use arm motions (which in one room resulted in us all "dabbing"!). I explain how their answers are the result of some of their personal values...and then I explain what personal values are and give some examples.

The last slide in the PPT gives them an example of how to complete their "personal values table". It's essentially a worksheet where they list 16 of their personal values using different categories to guide them. After they've all finished filling theirs in, I ask them to cut them all out and group them by category on their desk/table.

Then the real fun begins! I explain that just like in "Would you rather?", in real life, we sometimes have to choose between values and decide what's more important to us. In the activity we do next, I ask the students to literally throw away some of their values; they do much better if I prep them ahead of time and let them know that's coming. Then I read aloud a silly story about them going on a wild and crazy trip to the zoo, with lots of shenanigans and dilemmas, that ends with them having their top three personal values left.

Then together we process and I ask them:

o   How did you feel about the decisions you made? Why?

o   Which were the hardest ones for you to make?

o    If you were to play this game again, would you choose to have different squares at the end? Raise your hand if you would. Write on the back of the squares the values you wish you'd kept.

*This is a pretty accurate depiction of what most of them were left with!

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Becoming Problem Solvers in 3rd Grade - "But it's not my fault!" or "What do you do with a problem?"

The kiddos learned about problems inside vs. outside of their control and now it's time for them to start problem solving/taking responsibility for those inside/pipe cleaner problems! Last year I used the book But it's not my fault! with my 3rd graders for this topic, but it was such a hit with the teachers that I included it in their SEL mini-libraries. Good for them...bad for me...because then I had to find a new mentor text (or a lesson plan so amazing and full that it didn't need one).








 I'd seen What do you do with a problem? pop up on some lists and was skeptical about it's fit for my needs but I bit the bullet and ordered it any way. It's not perfect, but I like it enough to use it as an opener.

At this point in the year, almost all of my teachers have already read But it's not my fault! to their classes so we began with a short discussion about that story (summary, Noodle's problem, Noodle's solution). Then we read What to do with a problem? I stop throughout and ask:

• What do you think his problem is?
• Why might he want to run from his problem?
• What does it mean that a problem is an opportunity?

It worked so nicely that my first time with this lesson this year fell after our first (and only?) snowfall of the season...because our planned activity was to do a snowball fight to practice being problem solvers! Each student was given a piece of paper with a problem written on it and were asked to write just one solution to the problem - one thing someone could do to solve it. Then I ask them to stand up, crumple their paper into a snowball, and underhand throw it. I send them to go find a snowball, return to their desks, and provide a unique solution to their new problem. We did 3 rounds of this total so that each problem sheet has three ideas for solving it. It was loads of fun. Unfortunately...it was really, really hard for my students to generate solutions to (what I thought were simple) problems.

I realized I needed to bring it back down a little, at least for this cohort. And when in doubt...sorting/matching cards. I took the most major "problems" in the grade level and made cards for each problem and four possible solutions to each problem. Print/laminate/cut (you know the drill). In small groups, students sorted out the cards to examine which solutions would help solve which problems. This was much more successful!

While each group still had their cards out on the floor and sorted, they completed exit tickets as a way of processing and reflecting. Didn't snag any pics of them completed, but this is what I gave them:

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