School Counselor Blog

Google Chrome has an option to group tabs ! On a Mac, you control click on any Chrome website tab to get a drop-down menu. You can create a name for a group of websites. You can even color code your tab!  Check out the post below for tips to optimize grouping tabs! ✨ Visited Daily ✨ Easily access frequently visited websites by grouping them in a "daily" category. I group my course management system, student instructional options, and other frequently used websites into a "daily" tab. It is so convenient to have all of my most used websites easily accessible. ✨ Organized Tasks ✨ Create a tab group for websites needed for different tasks or projects. Each Tuesday, I send out office hour emails to students and families for our asynchronous day. I have a tab with teacher Zoom links and office hours sign ups. This allows me to have everything I need to send out emails. ✨Prepared for Meetings ✨  Facilitate your v

Join Andrea Burston ( @jyjcounselor ) and Danielle Schultz ( @sch_counselor ) to discuss navigating graduate school and a career as a professional school counselor.  In this session we will share tips, resources, and information about: 🎓 Making the most of internships 🎓 Interviewing for school counseling positions 🎓 Starting out as a new school counselor 🎓 What we have learned along the way This session is for: 🌟 Graduate students or new school counselors who want to ask questions and receive tips, information, and resources! 🌟 School counselors or counselor educators who want to share their knowledge and experience with others! School Counselor Meet Ups provide lots of information and resources in a laid-back conversational format on Google Meet. This is a unique format because you get to "see" (through video chat) school counselors from all over the country.  If you want to join us, sign up at:  http://bit.ly/meetup4sc . We currently have sessions planned through

I am hosting virtual events as a way to connect with students. I first heard about Brain Yoga from Alaina ( @cuttingedgeschoolcounselor ). Alaina shared about Brain Yoga in her Instagram Stories and I was very intrigued. Brain Yoga was created by author, Jason Reynolds. Jason Reynolds hosts Brain Yoga games on Instagram Live .  How to Play Brain Yoga To play Brain Yoga, you need the DISRUPTUS game cards . All the DISRUPTUS cards are images of everyday items. Participants are challenged to come up with a new invention using two items on the cards. Participants can use the whole items or parts of the items to make their invention. The goal is to be creative and come up with a new idea. There are no wrong answers.  When I played Brain Yoga with students, we played multiple rounds. In the future, I will probably limit each round to three responses so we can get through more cards and have a quicker pace to the game. Advertising to Students To advertise for our Brain

Need a last-minute Teacher Appreciation Week gift? Pair a plant with a cute gift tag! For Teacher Appreciation Week, I bought all of my children’s daycare and Pre-K teachers a plant. I made a gift tag for each one that says “Thank You for Helping me Grow!” I bought all the plants at Trader Joe’s. This plant is called a tornado plant.  You could check your local grocery store or plant nursery.  If you want an editable copy of the "Thanks for Helping Me Grow!" gift tag, click here ! I love connecting with other school counselors! Connect with me on  Instagram ,  Twitter , or  Facebook . If you have questions, email me or Direct Message me on  Instagram  or  Twitter .   Upcoming Events: Andrea Burston  and I are hosting an ASCA Webinar -  3 Tech Tools to Enhance Your School Counseling Program  on May 26th at 12:00pm EST. We will be sharing about Canva, Smore, and Screencastify! Click here for more details and to register! Andrea and I also hos

I'm new to the email scheduling scene. I didn't see the appeal at first. Now that I'm in the routine of it, I love the ease of scheduling emails! Here are some tips to optimize scheduling emails: ✨ Think About Timing ✨ Don't let your email get lost in the clutter. Schedule your emails to arrive when the recipient will most likely see your email. With strategic planning, your email can arrive at the top of your recipient's inbox! When I schedule emails to send to students, I schedule them to arrive at 8:00 am. Our first class period is 8:00am, so I know they will have their computers open.  ✨ Make it Predictable ✨ If you find yourself sending the same email every week, schedule it to send at a specific time. Your recipient will begin expecting the arrival of your email.  I send a weekly news & events slideshow to the whole school staff. I scheduled my email to arrive at 7:15 am on Monday morning. Staff will begin to expect this email first thing every Monday. ✨

I am hosting virtual events as a way to connect with students. The first virtual event I hosted for students was a Pet Show-and-Tell. Below I share information about hosting a virtual Pet Show-and-Tell at for your students. Advertising to Students To advertise for our Pet Show-and-Tell event I did the following: Wrote a description for the weekly update our principal sends out on our course management system Emailed all fully remote students Sent out a News & Events Slideshow to teachers to project to students Made announcements in student lunches Shared the event on my school Twitter account  How Students Signed Up I created a Pet Show-and-Tell sign up on google forms. I included the link to this form in all the digital advertisements for students (school update, email, and Twitter). I also made a QR code of the the form using QR Code Generator so that students could scan it to sign up.  How Students Joined the Event All students who