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4 Heart Counselor

School Counseling from the Heart

The best chewelry

8/29/2018

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My newly found favorite store for chewelry and figet toys is https://www.stimtastic.co/ My students love the chewy necklaces. I love the variety and breakaway necklace. This year, I have 510 gen. ed. students, fourteen students that are diagnosed with autism and six students with mild to moderate disabilities. This store has products for all. [ I have no connection with Stimtastic and recieve nothing for sharing this.]
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August 29th, 2018

8/29/2018

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Emotions Bulletin board

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A little winter fun for staff

11/8/2017

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We are having a staff breakfast next week and I saw the idea for predicting a snow day in a set on TPT for Staff Icebreakers . Clipart from Educlips. Thought this would be a nice way to support my hard working teachers. Can't wait to see there response. 
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Where is the counselor? door sign

8/17/2017

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My school colors are blue and yellow. Our mascot is an arrow. I created simple signs in MS Word. I am attaching velcro dots to the poster and have an arrow that will point to where I am. Door signs are a must for counselors. It takes me a second to change my sign as I walk out the door and saves students, teachers, administrators and parents from being frustrated with not knowing where I am. 
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door_sign.docx
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Confidentiality Poster

8/17/2017

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confidentiality_poster.docx
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confidentiality_poster_-_color.docx
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Bulletin Boards

8/11/2017

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I am super excited to be working in an elementary this year. My school's mascot is Arrows so I love the Aim High themed supplies from Carson-Dellosa. I also recreated the Inside Out bulletin that numerous others have shared. My office is slowly coming together and school starts next week.
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Gossip - 4th & 5th grade

7/11/2017

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Objectives:
  • Understand how spreading rumors is hurtful
  • Understand that both positive and negative rumors can be hurtful
  • State one way to stop the spread of rumors
Standards:
  • Sense of belonging in the school environment
  • Create positive and supportive relationships with other students
  • Demonstrate empathy
  • Demonstrate ethical decision-making and social responsibility
  • Demonstrate advocacy skills and ability to assert self, when necessary
  • Demonstrate social maturity and behaviors appropriate to the situation and environment
Materials:
  • Mr Peabody’s Apple by Madonna
  • Two Truths and a Lie
  • Blank Paper
two_truths_and_a_lie.pdf
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Directions:
Read story
Discuss story
Ask students why might people spread gossip? (to get attention, revenge, to draw attention away from something they did, etc.)

Two Truths and a Lie (celebrity) [the lies do not have periods at the end of the sentences, all info was gotten off IMDb]
Talk about how even flattering rumors can still hurt someone. (if you got a new video game and I told everyone, it would take away from your joy of telling people)
Talk about how spreading embarrassing truths can also hurt someone. 
Talk about ways to stop/decrease spreading of rumors (ask students what they think they can do to stop the spread of rumors?)
Have students fold a paper in half for every time they agree with a statement.
  • Have you ever been hurt by gossip
  • Have you ever had a friend hurt by gossip
  • Have you ever shared something true about someone else that hurt their feelings
  • Has someone shared something true about you that hurt your feelings
  • Have you ever shared something that you weren't sure whether it was true
  • Have you ever shared something you knew wasn't true
Then have them try to smooth out the wrinkles. The paper is damaged just like our relationships and it takes a lot of patience and effort to restore the relationship to a decent place.
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Conflict Resolution Animal Style - 5th grade

7/11/2017

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​Objectives:
  • Define conflict
  • Understand how conflict can be positive and negative
  • Identify what conflict style they are
Standards:
  • Positive attitude towards work and learning
  • Demonstrates critical-thinking skills to make informed decisions
  • Demonstrate creativity
  • Gather evidence and consider multiple perspectives to make informed decisions
  • Demonstrate empathy
  • Use effective collaboration and cooperation skills
Materials:
  • Multiple Fairy Tale story books
  • Conflict Style Powerpoint
  • KidsHealth Conflict Resolution Grades 3-5 Fairy Tale Conflict Lesson & worksheet
conflict_resolution.pptx
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Directions:
Define Conflict:     A struggle or clash between opposing forces;
Incompatibility or interference, as of one idea, desire, event, or activity with another;
Mental struggle resulting from incompatible or opposing needs, drives, wishes, or external or internal demands;

Ask students for examples of conflict
Ask is conflict always a bad thing
Discuss how conflict is neutral and the way we hand conflict can be both a positive and negative
Discuss how we all have a style of how we prefer to handle conflict
Help students Identify their conflict style
Have students complete the Fairy Tale Conflict worksheet, Ask students to think about how they solve the conflict in the fairy tale and how that aligns with their conflict style
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Social Skills for School group - 2nd grade

7/8/2017

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I used this group with a group of second grade boys. They really enjoyed having stories read to them and spending time talking about what was happening in their world. I think it is always valuable to learn what students' perceptions of a situation is. For the most part, the students didn't understand why they were getting in trouble with their teachers. Some students need social skills taught in an explicit way. Social stories are a great way to introduce skills to students.
What is the Social Skills for School group?
  1. Talk about what group is
  2. Establish group rules
  3. Establish a reward
  4. Topic Game to help students learn to focus and stay on topic.
  • Play a game with the alphabet where every letter has to be the beginning of a word in a theme such as fruit or vegetable: A…apple, B…banana, C…carrot
Howard B WiggleBottom learns to Listen by Howard Binkow (listening skills)
  1. Whole body listening
  2. Talk about controlling our behaviors
  3. Color in the parts of the bunny we use for whole body listening.
  4. Red Light, Green Light or Simon Says (controlling our body games)
My Mouth is a Volcano by Julia Cook (controlling our voice)
  1. Brainstorm Things we can do when we feel like we might erupt (wait until they’re finished, be polite, close your mouth, be thinking, raise your hand, take a breath, wait your turn)
  2. Volcano WS color (got this from the workbook) and write what you will do when you are about to erupt.
Howard B Wigglebottom Learns it is Okay to Back Away by Howard Binkow (managing anger)
  1. Discuss the coping skills Howard uses when he is mad and what things you do to calm down when you’re upset
  2. Create a list of coping skills we can use at school & at home.
  3. Coping skills fortune teller. 
  4. Have each student create their own flashcard coping skills and place on a ring.
I just don’t like the Sound of No by Julia Cook (accepting no)
  1. Discuss a time you struggled with being told no and a time when you accepted no
  2. Use visuals to create a reminder of the steps (sunglasses - to look at the person, Letters O & K - to say okay, Bubbles - to help us calm down, Timer - wait until later)
  3. Have students decorate their own star
The worst day of my life ever by Julia Cook (listening and following instructions)
  1. Color the dog by following my direction. Tail is green polka-dot, head is purple stripes, etc
Wrap-Up Group
  1. Review skills learned
  2. Play board games and other games to practice skills
  3. Remind students that we can continue to support each other; one-on-one, students helping each other in the classroom, etc.
sound_of_no_ws.pdf
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social_skills_survey.pdf
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social_skills_pretest.pdf
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Feelings - Kindergarten

7/3/2017

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This lesson is similar to the 1st - 2nd grade lesson but with it simplified to the four main feelings.
​Objectives:
  • Explore a variety of emotions
  • Match facial features to an emotion
Standards:
  • Demonstrate critical thinking skills to make informed decisions
  • Demonstrate creativity
  • Demonstrate ability to work independently
Materials:
  • The Way I Feel by Janan Cain
  • Feelings pumpkin worksheet (linked below)
  • Pumpkin Feelings cards
Directions:
Read the story The Way I Feel. 
Discuss how we have lots of feelings and how they are constantly changing. Remind students that it is okay to have any feeling, how we show those feelings needs to be done in a safe manner.
Show pumpkin emotion cards and have students guess what emotion they are. 
Have students draw their own pumpkin faces for happy, sad, silly, and mad.
kindergarten_-_feelings.docx
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Digital Citizenship - 4th & 5th grade

7/3/2017

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Digital Citizenship - 4th grade

For my digital citizenship lesson, I used a lesson I found at Eagle Digital Citizenship. I did change what video I used. I liked this video from Common Sense Education better for my students.  Here are some examples from my students. This lesson taught about so much more than digital citizenship as students explored interests and hobbies, identified college and career goals, and personal aspirations. 
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Digital Citizenship - 5th grade

For the 5th graders, I used The Power of Words lesson plan by Common Sense Media
Here are the links to all the resources. I adapted the lesson slightly to fit what I thought would benefit my students.
​Power of Words Lesson
In the lesson, I only used Words Can Hurt and the Talk & Take Action worksheets.
Discussion Questions
Family Tip Sheet
The students had a blast making their own comics and sharing them on the overhead with the whole class. 
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Empathy - 3rd grade

7/3/2017

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​Objectives:
  • Understand the meaning of empathy
  • Learn to use empathy to solve problems
Standards:
  • Demonstrate empathy
  • Demonstrate critical thinking skills to make informed decisions
  • Create positive and supportive relationships with other students
Materials:
  • Stand in My Shoes by Bob Sornson
  • Sesame video to define empathy 
  • List of scenarios from Cheerful Counseling
Directions:
Read the story Stand in My Shoes.
Ask Students to define empathy. (Empathy - the ability to understand and care about how another person is feeling.)
Watch the Sesame street video if students need further clarification.
Talk about the Five Steps of Empathy:
  • Watch & Listen
    • How is the person acting
    • What is the person saying
  • Remember
    • When did you feel the same way
  • Imagine
    • How would you feel in the same situation
  • Ask
    • Find out how the person is doing
    • How are they feeling
  • Show you care
    • Let the person know you care through your actions and words.
Discuss/act out scenarios and how you can show empathy.
4 Heart: I let the students decide if they wanted to talk through the scenarios or act them out.  I loved watching the students come up with clever ways to show empathy when they acted out the scenes. The classes that choose to act out vs talking had better responses to the scenarios. 
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October feelings with zones (1-2)

7/3/2017

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​Objectives:
  • Learn about various feelings
  • Identify what zone a feeling belongs in
Standards:
  • Demonstrate social maturity and behaviors appropriate to the situation and environment
  • Demonstrate critical thinking skills to make informed decisions
  • Demonstrate creativity
  • Demonstrate ability to work independently
​Materials:
  • The Way I Feel by Janan Cain
  • Feelings Pumpkin worksheet
  • Pumpkin Feelings cards
  • Zones of Regulation Poster
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feelings_pumpkin_ws.docx
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pumpkin faces 1.jpg
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pumpkin faces 2.jpg
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pumpkin faces 3.jpg
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Directions:
Explain that today we’re going to learn about feelings. We’re going to learn how to sort feelings into 4 different categories based on how your brain and body feel.
Blue - body is running slow, not much energy, tired, sick, sad, or bored
Green - body feels good to go, like a green light, happy, calm, focused
Yellow - caution and slow down, body is starting to lose control, feel silly, wiggly, excited, worried, anxious, surprised
Red - out of control and need to stop, extreme feelings like anger, extreme nervous
Read the story The Way I Feel.
Show Pumpkin emotion cards and have students guess what emotion they are and what zone they are in. Ask students what parts of the face helped you decide what emotion it is? Point out eyebrows, eyes, mouth, cheeks and how we use those to help us understand how others are feeling.
Have students draw their own pumpkin faces for each zones.
4 Heart: I was careful with this lesson to not reference the well-known holiday. I talked about fall for the use of pumpkin shapes because it is funner then drawing on circles. The students quickly picked up on the idea of sorting feelings into the four Zones of Regulation. My talented daughter drew the faces on the pumpkins.
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You be you (diversity) - Kindergarten

7/1/2017

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Objectives:
  • Increase awareness of self
  • Increase awareness of differences
 Standards:
  • Sense of belonging in the school environment
  • Demonstrate creativity
  • Demonstrate ability to work independently
 Materials:
  • Book: You Be You by Linda Kranz
  • Fish template p.4 (and other great ideas by Linda Kranz)
  • Construction/colored/plain paper
  • Large blue bulletin paper
  • Crayons
  • Tape/glue
Directions:
Read the story You Be You. 
As you are reading point out how the fish are all swimming but in different directions. Ask students what differences they saw. Talk about how we are like the fish in the book and we are all different but maybe we look or do something like someone else. But we are still unique. 
Have students create their own rock fish and attach to the ocean (blue bulletin paper). 
4Heart: The students loved being creative with designing their fish and how they swam in the ocean. Their ocean hung in the hall most of the year.
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Schools where everyone belongs - My take away

6/30/2017

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School Climate is at the heart of everything we do as school counselors. When discussing school climate with a colleague, she suggested Stan Davis’s book Schools Where Everyone Belongs. Besides the fundamentals of discipline (clear rules enforced consistently) and addressing bullying, Davis does a fantastic job in reminding us that the attitudes of staff have a profound impact on the students.

​He stated that the subtle way teachers interact with students affects the way other students view and treat them. ​“When we show by our actions that we value every student, we encourage our students to do the same” (Davis, p.44). The book is full of useful strategies for bullying, discipline, and communication with students and families.

My biggest take away changed the way I talk to my students and my own children. Davis suggested calm, descriptive feedback statements that do not include judgement or our feelings are most likely to help youth focus on their own actions and the results of those actions. The book has specific examples for feedback and praise. Great quick read.
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Feelings with friends (1st - 2nd grade)

6/28/2017

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This is a simple group about emotions and coping skills.  I used it with the primary grades. It was a great way to help students who need a little extra support with emotional regulation. I focused each week on one emotion and a coping skill to go with it. I define the term Coping Skill as any tip, trick, or tool that you use to safely help you calm down that doesn't hurt you, others, or property.
What is Feelings with Friends
  1. Talk about the purpose of group
  2. Establish group rules
  3. Watch Boundin’ the Disney/Pixar short
    1. Talk about the emotions that the sheep felt at different points in time
Learn about the variety of emotions
  1. The Way I Feel by Janan Cain
  2. Create a Feel Wheel (Creative Therapy p. 31) [make a giant feelings wheel with kids drawing facial expressions in each emotion]
    1. Feel Wheel with clothes pin will be used to check our emotions when we come into group
Managing Our Anger
  1. Howard B Wigglebottom Learns It Is Okay to Back Away
  2. Talk about how and where we feel our mads 
    1. ​Flip Chart - draw a person outline 
    2. Color and draw what the kids say on the person outline
  3. Coping Skills - Breathing: Birthday Cake or Hot Cocoa breathing
Managing Our Sads
  1. I Feel Sad by Brian Moses and Mike Gordon
  2. Talk about our sads
  3. Coping Skill - Get Moving - Dance Party (GoNoodle)
  4. Visualization using the 5 senses of a happy memory
Managing Being Afraid
  1. Don’t be Afraid to Drop by Julia Cook
  2. Talk about our fears
  3. Coping Skill - Problem Solving Skills (reframe, do something different, remember exceptions, and magic question)
Managing Our Worry
  1. Wemberly Worried
  2. Talk about how we feel our worries
  3. Coping Skill - Progressive Muscle Relaxation or make worry Stones
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mEET THE SCHOOL COUNSELOR (k-2 GRADE)

6/28/2017

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Objectives:
  • Meet the School Counselor
  • Learn about the role of the school counselor
Standards:
  • Create relationships with adults that support success
Materials:
  • School Counselor Toolbox (plastic toolbox full of the below items)
  • Worksheet
  • Parent Letter​
Directions:
Introduce yourself to the class. Use the School Counselor Toolbox to facilitate a conversation about what a counselor does. Let students take turns coming up and picking an item and share why they think I might have it in my toolbox. (remind students that not everyone will get a turn)
  1. Elephant - Big ears to listen with
  2. Heart - care about everyone
  3. Tissues - to dry up tears
  4. Bandaids - to help when you are hurting
  5. Dory - to remind you you can do it if you “just keep swimming”
  6. Lock - I keep your secrets, unless someone will get hurt
  7. Puzzle- I am here to help you solve your problems
  8. Eraser - To fix mistakes
  9. Elsa - to help you learn to “let it go”
  10. Emoji cup - I can help you learn to “cup” (cope) with your emotions
  11. Rice Krispy Treat - It is always a treat to come see me, you are never in trouble
  12. Turtle - Because I like turtles and I want to learn about what you like.
Let students know examples of how they might see me. In a group, one-on- one, or in the class. Let students know that they can ask their teacher to come see me. If I am with another student or meeting with other adults, ask your teacher to send me an email and I will come get you as soon as I can. Pass out worksheet and have students draw their favorite part of school counselor’s job.
* I have also supplemented this lesson by starting with the story Mrs Joyce Gives the Best High Fives: Introducing the School Counselor by Erainna Winnett 

4 Heart:
This lesson helps students to understand the role of a school counselor and learn the numerous ways I am here to support them. The drawings pull my heart strings as I see what parts of my job they like best.

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meet the counselor (grades 3-5)

6/28/2017

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Objectives:
  • Meet the counselor
  • Learn how to decide the size and significance of a problem
  • Learn how and when to see the counselor
Standards:
  • Create relationships with adults that support success
  • Use effective oral and written communication skills and listening skills
  • Create positive and supportive relationships with other students
  • Demonstrate critical thinking skills to make informed decisions
Materials:
Healing the Heart from Savvy School Counselor
  • 20 band-aids with common problems listed on them
  • Hearts that list and define the size of a problem (small, medium, large, critical)
  • Worksheet
Directions:
Ask students if they know and remember what a school counselor does. If they understand the role of the school counselor, move on to the activity. If not, discuss K-2 lesson.

This activity will prompt students to think about common problems they may face and determine the size of the problem. By determining the size of a problem, students will also learn how quickly they should seek help from the school counselor (or a trusted adult for those critical situations). 
Healing the Heart revised activity - Print out the Large, Medium, Small, and Critical Problem Hearts on full size sheets of paper. Print out band-aids and attach descriptions on the bottom side, laminate materials for longevity.
At the beginning of the lesson, read each of descriptions for the four different sizes of problems. Hang up hearts on a visible surface. Pass out band-aids to the students (working in groups of two or more) have them complete the worksheet. (I had groups of two students and they each got two bandaids). Once WS is completed, students will put their band-aid under the correct heart on the board. Discuss example and 
why it is under that category. Discuss with students about when to see me and how to see me.
4 Heart:

This lesson helps students to understand the size of a problem (some serious critical thinking happening) and then use that knowledge to know how soon they should see the school counselor (making informed decisions). I also use this time to remind students about what my school's procedures are for coming to see me. 
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4 Heart Design

6/26/2017

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I designed this image late one night when my depression was keeping me awake. I first drew a heart and added a teardrop falling from the inner point of the heart. To me, this symbolized the hidden tears of depression that I keep on the inside of my heart. Then I decided to compile four hearts as it is my four daughters that keep me going. Next I added the semicolon to represent my depression and raise awareness for mental health (Project Semicolon). This is my original design.
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    Author

    Hi, I'm Christi; a School Counselor in Ohio. Please see the About page for more details.

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