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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Mini SEL Classroom Libraries

Last spring, I applied for and was awarded a grant within the district whose parameters were basically that it have to do with bullying and/or SEL. Being a bibliophile, I jumped at the chance to get more books in the classrooms. I wrote the grant for getting a mini-SEL library for each classroom with books specific to the issues I see each grade level face most commonly/pervasively.

After we got the books (and oooed and ahhed over them extensively), we ordered some of our favorite book boxes for them, and consulted with our literacy coach. Our hope was that by including some standards-based discussion questions and writing prompts, we could garner additional investment from our teachers for the books usage. Then started the task of compiling (and sometimes creating) short extension activities for each book.



The end result was this:

Each box included a handout with both standards based and counselor created discussion questions and a handout briefly explaining activities the teachers could use to reinforce the books' lessons, as well as any accompanying materials (task cards, master copy of worksheet, etc.

We introduced these to the teachers very early in the year...to mixed responses. A handful of teachers were excited, a handful were frustrated (our daily classroom's schedule is maxed out and anything that appears "extra" is stressful for the teachers), and most were apathetic. While we were hoping for lots of joy, we also recognize that everything new has a learning curve, both for us and for the teachers. When we first started doing regular classroom lessons, we had push back, and now they're usually jazzed for us to come in. Things take time to build, and a strong culture of SEL (and incorporating SEL into literacy!) is just in the growing and building stages still.

That said...about three or four months since introducing them...and we've gotten some GREAT feedback! The activities don't seem to be being used, so in the future we won't put time into them, but the books have been a huge hit. Kindergarten, 1st grade, and 3rd grade in particular have been big fans.

Curious as to what books we selected for each grade?

Kindergarten 

Hands Off, Harry!
A Bad Case of Tattle Tongue
The Recess Queen

1st Grade

Clark the Shark
How Full is Your Bucket?
A Bug and a Wish

2nd Grade

The Most Magnificent Thing 

Teamwork Isn't My Thing 

Being Frank

3rd Grade

But It's Not My Fault!
The Juice Box Bully
The Invisible Boy

4th Grade

Just KiddingCoasting Casey
Simon's Hook


Interested in learning more about discussion questions or extension activities for a specific book? Email me or comment here. It may be a bit much to put here in a post but I'm happy to share everything I've got the rights to share.

4 comments Bibliotherapy, Books

"Drama" Mini Lunch-Bunch Group

I had a 3rd grade homeroom that was struggling a little bit. They had a long term sub and a lot of kiddos who just need a lot of extra love and structure. There's a group of 5 in particular who were constantly finding themselves involved in drama with one another. Their reading teacher told me that she was spending about 15 minutes every day debriefing with them after lunch/recess before she was able to actually teach them.

My attempt to help with this problem was to have a mini lunch-bunch group to finish out the end of the year with the drama llamas. This is a group of bright, highly-verbal, and fun students - 4 girls and 1 boy - and I knew they were going to be a hoot. I love lunch bunches because the teachers never have any problem with me pulling kids during lunch, but it's hard to do a lot of activities when there are trays of food being eaten on the table, so I sometimes find them to be a challenge. Here's a breakdown of what we did together.

Session 1

• Introductions
• Explain purpose of group
• Discuss group rules and goals
• Play game to continue to establish norms
• ***They knew pretty much immediately why they were all in the group. While I'm not sure that I had investment for change right away, they could all acknowledge that they were having these problems.

Second Session

• Read Drama Llama. (I love this book! It's right in the 3rd grade sweet spot in my opinion. It's short and the accompanying activity pages are grade B, but it's such a great little intro to the topic)

• Ask students whythe character Lucy was stirring up drama (to get attention, because she thought it would make her popular, she didn’t want to be boring)
• Write “small minds talk about people, average minds talk about events, great minds talk about ideas” on board, or show poster of the quote. Discuss its meaning. Give concrete examples (i.e. if all Kaya ever talks about is other people, will I think she’s cool and interesting? No! I may think she’s boring if that’s all she talks about, because then I’ll think she has nothing else in her brain”)
• Students brainstorm ideas of different things they can talk about at lunch and recess other than other people. Put on quote/poster. Share out on some of them and challenge students to utilize them in the next week.

I have blue covers over my flourescent lights and they make many of my photos super blue!

Third Session

•  Read Trouble Talk, discuss. 
  

• Introduce THINK acronym and ask how it connects to the story.
• Do THINK card sorts (I used the sets I made for this lesson before I found a way better whole class option). We discussed each THINK rule, then they took turns reading examples and we decided together if the examples broke or followed the rule.
• Around the table, each student identifies which THINK rule they need to work on. Unsurprisingly, almost of of the students in this group identified "necessary" as the rule they struggle with the most, though a couple also mentioned "true"

Fourth Session

• Ask students what they know about invitations to things (it’s when someone invites you to come, you can go or not go, etc.)
• Write “You don’t have to attend every argument you’re invited to” on the board.

• Explain that every time someone says something that bothers you, it could be like an invitation to an argument (or like a hook!). You don’t have to attend – you don’t have to participate – you can choose to let it go.
• Using little blank cards from the Target dollar spot, I wrote the four kiddos at our last session each an "invitation" to participate in some 3rd grade drama. They took turns opening them, reading them aloud, and then talking through what they would do. Scenarios were: friend insulted your hair, someone said one of your good friends was talking about you behind your back, you overheard a teacher say one of your classmates was failing, and someone suggested a classmate has been really bossy lately.
• 
  *I did use the word "ratchet" in one. It's an ugly word - and also a word that one of the students in the group used a couple weeks prior about a classmate's here. Using it here opened the door to discuss the power of our words even further.

Because this was more a of "mini" group, I didn't do any sort of pre/post. That said, anecdotally, these students have become much less involved in conflict and are wasting less class time on drama. Win!

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