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Showing posts from 2014

Free Spirit Post: Pinterest-Inspired Winter Art & Activities for Back-to-School

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Get your creativity flowing with my latest post for the Free Spirit Publishing Blog,  Pinterest-Inspired Winter Art and Activities for Back-to-School .   I share simple winter-themed crafts and activities you can use in lessons and groups. What winter-themed art or activities are you planning? I started writing for  Free Spirit Publishing's Blog  in April of 2012. Check out the  Counselor's Corner  for more Free Spirit Publishing Blog Posts by me! I love  Free Spirit's books  and I am so excited to contribute to  Free Spirit's Blog ,  "a springboard of ideas for teachers, counselors, and anyone who cares about kids!" Comment below,  tweet ,  contact Danielle , or share on the  School Counselor Blog Facebook Page ! Danielle is a K-12 Certified School Counselor,  Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC),  and blogger at  School Counselor Blog , a place where school counselors share innovative ideas,  creative lesson plans,  and quality resources. C

Free Spirit Post: Holiday Tips for Divorced and Separated Families

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The holidays can be a challenging time for divorced and separated families. In my post for the Free Spirit Publishing Blog Holiday Tips for Divorced & Separated Families , I tips that can be used during the winter holidays and holidays throughout the year. What tips do you have for divorced and separated families during the holiday season? I started writing for  Free Spirit Publishing's Blog  in April of 2012. Check out the  Counselor's Corner  for more Free Spirit Publishing Blog Posts by me! I love  Free Spirit's books  and I am so excited to contribute to  Free Spirit's Blog ,  "a springboard of ideas for teachers, counselors, and anyone who cares about kids!" Comment below,  tweet ,  contact Danielle , or share on the  School Counselor Blog Facebook Page ! Danielle is a K-12 Certified School Counselor, Nationally Certified Counselor, and blogger at  School Counselor Blog , a place where school counselors share innovative ideas,  creati

Free Spirit Post: Be Thankful and Show Gratitude

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In this busy time of year, it can be difficult to slow down to reflect on the things for which you are thankful. In my post for the Free Spirit Publishing Blog Be Thankful and Show Gratitude I share ways you can show thanks to those around you! How do you show gratitude and thanks? I started writing for  Free Spirit Publishing's Blog  in April of 2012. Check out the  Counselor's Corner  for more Free Spirit Publishing Blog Posts by me! I love  Free Spirit's books  and I am so excited to contribute to  Free Spirit's Blog ,  "a springboard of ideas for teachers, counselors, and anyone who cares about kids!" Comment below,  tweet ,  contact Danielle , or share on the  School Counselor Blog Facebook Page ! Danielle is a K-12 Certified School Counselor, Licensed Professional Counselor, and blogger at  School Counselor Blog , a place where school counselors share innovative ideas,  creative lesson plans,  and quality resources. Connect with Da

December #SCCHAT Transcript: Holiday Assistance Programs

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The topic of the the December #SCCHAT was  Holiday Assistance Programs.   The chat was moderated by Andrea Burston ( @andreajburston ) elementary school counselor and blogger at JYJ Counselor Blog . School counselors shared resources for planning and organizing a holiday assistance program. You can view the transcript below or   read the full transcript here . For more information about #SCCHAT and transcripts from previous chats visit:  http://bit.ly/scchat-info . #SCCHAT occurs on the first Tuesday of the month unless otherwise specified.  To add the #SCCHAT schedule to your calendar  click here . Join us for our January #SCCHAT on January 6, 2014 at 8pmEST.  The topic is TBA. Check  #SCCHAT schedule  for details. Join  School Counselor Blog  and  SCOPE  for #scchat the first Tuesday of the month @ 8pmEST!  For transcripts of previous #SCCHATs, schedules for future School Counselor Tweet Chats, and information on how to participate, visit #SCCHAT Info:  http:

Free Spirit Post: Combating Stage Fright

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There are many situations in schools where students have to talk or perform in front of a group. In my post for the Free Spirit Publishing Blog  Combating Stage Fright ,  I share tips for helping students. How do you help students combat stage fright? I started writing for  Free Spirit Publishing's Blog  in April of 2012. Check out the  Counselor's Corner  for more Free Spirit Publishing Blog Posts by me! I love  Free Spirit's books  and I am so excited to contribute to  Free Spirit's Blog ,  "a springboard of ideas for teachers, counselors, and anyone who cares about kids!" Comment below,  tweet ,  contact Danielle , or share on the  School Counselor Blog Facebook Page ! Danielle is a K-12 Certified School Counselor, Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC), and blogger at  School Counselor Blog , a place where school counselors share innovative ideas,  creative lesson plans,  and quality resources. Connect with Danielle via  email ,  Twitter , 

December #SCCHAT Topic Announced: Holiday Assistance Programs

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Our December #SCCHAT will be held on December 2, 2014 at 8pmEST.   Andrea Burston , blogger at  JYJ Counselor Blog  and  Carol Miller , blogger at  The Middle School Counselor  will be moderating the chat about holiday assistance programs. Both Andrea and Carol have run holiday assistance programs at their schools in the past. Join us for ideas on how to start your own, or make your existing program better. I wrote a post last year for the Free Spirit Publishing Blog where I highlighted both Andrea and Carol's holiday assistance programs. Check out the post here . This year at school I am co-hosting a holiday assistance program that is kind of a mash-up between Andrea's and Carol's program. I can't wait to see how it goes and share how I did it with you all. Comment below,  tweet ,  contact Danielle , or share on the  School Counselor Blog Facebook Page ! Danielle is a K-12 Certified School Counselor, Nationally Certified Counselor, and blogger at  School

November #SCCHAT Transcript: Girls' Friendship Challenges

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The topic of the the November #SCCHAT was  Girls' Friendship Challenges.   The chat was co-moderated by Annie Fox  (@Annie_Fox) , author and   parenting expert (she has a new book about Girls and Friendship  here ) and Erin Rebling ( @erebss ), elementary school counselor from Pennsylvania. School counselors shared great resources for assisting girls with responding to and managing conflict. You can view the transcript below or   read the full transcript here . For more information about #SCCHAT and transcripts from previous chats visit:  http://bit.ly/scchat-info . #SCCHAT occurs on the first Tuesday of the month unless otherwise specified.  To add the #SCCHAT schedule to your calendar  click here . Join us for our December #SCCHAT on December 2, 2014 at 8pmEST.  The topic is Holiday Assistance Programs. The December #SCCHAT will be moderated by Andrea Burston , blogger at JYJ Counselor Blog and Carol Miller , blogger at The Middle School Counselor . Both Andrea and Car

Free Spirit Post: National Runaway Prevention Month

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November is National Runaway Prevention Month! Check out my latest  Free Spirit Publishing Blog  post  National Runaway Prevention Month for resources for supporting runaway youth and ideas for spreading awareness. How do you spread awareness about runaway youth? I started writing for  Free Spirit Publishing's Blog  in April of 2012. Check out the  Counselor's Corner  for more Free Spirit Publishing Blog Posts by me! I love  Free Spirit's books  and I am so excited to contribute to  Free Spirit's Blog ,  "a springboard of ideas for teachers, counselors, and anyone who cares about kids!" Comment below,  tweet ,  contact Danielle , or share on the  School Counselor Blog Facebook Page ! Danielle is a K-12 Certified School Counselor, Licensed Professional Counselor, and blogger at  School Counselor Blog , a place where school counselors share innovative ideas,  creative lesson plans,  and quality resources. Connect with Danielle via  email ,  T

Free Spirit Post: #REACHHIGHER for Red Ribbon Week

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In my latest post for the  Free Spirit Publishing Blog , #REACHHIGHER for Red Ribbon Week,  I share a college and career take on Red Ribbon week, by focusing on higher education!  How do you celebrate Red Ribbon Week? I started writing for  Free Spirit Publishing's Blog  in April of 2012. Check out the  Counselor's Corner  for more Free Spirit Publishing Blog Posts by me! I love  Free Spirit's books  and I am so excited to contribute to  Free Spirit's Blog ,  "a springboard of ideas for teachers, counselors, and anyone who cares about kids!" Comment below,  tweet ,  contact Danielle , or share on the  School Counselor Blog Facebook Page ! Danielle is a K-12 Certified School Counselor, Nationally Certified Counselor, and blogger at  School Counselor Blog , a place where school counselors share innovative ideas,  creative lesson plans,  and quality resources. Connect with Danielle via  email ,  Twitter ,  Pinterest ,  LinkedIn ,  Google+ , and

October #SCCHAT Transcript: Q and A with School Counseling Graduate Students

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The topic of the the October #SCCHAT was  Q and A with School Counseling Graduate Students. The chat was moderated by graduate students at Virginia Commonwealth University and their professor, Julia V. Taylor  @juliavtaylor , author of  The Girls in Real Life Situations (G.I.R.L.S.)  group curriculum  (and many others!), speaker, doctoral student, and former high school counselor! The VCU graduate students asked excellent questions about where to find resources, interacting with parents, applying for jobs, and much more! You can view the transcript below or   read the full transcript here . For more information about #SCCHAT and transcripts from previous chats visit:  http://bit.ly/scchat-info . #SCCHAT occurs on the first Tuesday of the month unless otherwise specified. To add the #SCCHAT schedule to your calendar  click here . Join us for our November #SCCHAT on November 4, 2014 at 8pmEST.  The topic is Girls' Friendship Challenges and will be co-moderated by Annie Fo

Free Spirit Post: Kids' Goal Setting: SMART GOALS

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Looking for a way to teach goal setting to kids? In my post for the Free Spirit Publishing Blog post  Kids' Goal Setting: SMART Goals ,  I step by step instructions on how to help kids make SMART goals. How do you teach kids about goal setting? I started writing for  Free Spirit Publishing's Blog  in April of 2012. Check out the  Counselor's Corner  for more Free Spirit Publishing Blog Posts by me! I love  Free Spirit's books  and I am so excited to contribute to  Free Spirit's Blog ,  "a springboard of ideas for teachers, counselors, and anyone who cares about kids!" Comment below,  tweet ,  contact Danielle , or share on the  School Counselor Blog Facebook Page ! Danielle is a K-12 Certified School Counselor, Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC), and blogger at  School Counselor Blog , a place where school counselors share innovative ideas,  creative lesson plans,  and quality resources. Connect with Danielle via  email ,  Twitter ,  Pin

Why ASCA and Why Help School Counselors Spice Up Their Program With #SCCS15? Guest Post buy Jeff Reams - The Counseling Geek

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Guest Post by Jeff Reams, The Counseling Geek Anyone who has attended the  ASCA National Conference can easily answer the first question. Those that have not - you are thoroughly missing out. The ASCA conference is three days of networking, learning from over 100 breakout sessions, and getting encouraged by top keynote speakers (like Michelle Obama!). How cool is it? It actually afflicts those who attend with PADS after leaving! Sadly, there are some school counselors that have never attended and one of the main reasons is because there is a lack of funding. That is why we are back for another year of the School Counselor Community Scholarship (#SCCS15) . We have upped our donation/fundraising goal from last year to 5 full registration scholarships ($1, 750) to give to some school counselors in need! The recipients of last year's scholarships really enjoyed their time at the conference: Bridget Helms of Jane Ball Elementary School in Cedar Lake, IN Katie Powers

Shutting the Door on Digital Predators: Digital Safety Lesson Part 2

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In my previous post I shared the first part of my Digital Safety lesson for 6th grade students . During the second half of the lesson I showed students a video focusing on digital privacy and safety.  When looking for a video to share, I went first to  Rebecca Lallier's blog, School Counseling by Heart  and found this awesome video below. (Rebecca is an expert on all things child abuse so be sure to check out her MANY resources!) The video is about a girl who has a public account online. It outlines some of the dangers of having your information open and available for anyone to see. It is 8 minutes and 34 seconds long. Before watching the video with my students, I explained that the video we are about to watch can be a little creepy at times, but I felt like it was important to for you to see what can happen if we do not take our digital safety seriously.  During the video students gasped at different parts, especially when the predator goes into her open house an

Kahooting about Digital Safety with 6th graders! - Digital Safety Lesson Part 1

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This week, while one third of the sixth grade was out of the building each day for a field trip, I have been teaching bullying and digital safety lessons in all of the 6th grade science classes. I have had a blast getting to know our new 6th graders. I was planning to share what I did each day of lessons in sequence, but I really just could not wait to share this one with you!!!!!!!!! While planning lessons, I shared with my co-counselor that I wanted to do to  the line game  activity  related to social media and other online site usage for the first half of my lesson of my Digital Safety lesson. He suggested I use   Kahoot!  so students could use their ChromeBooks to respond to the prompts. I never heard of  Kahoot!  before but I was excited to incorporate this new tool into my lessons!  Kahoot!  is an  amazing, easy to use quiz based learning website.   Students can use their iPads, iPhones, iPods, ChromeBooks, laptops, or other devices to respond to questions on  Kahoot!   qui

Maya Angelou "Thrive" Quote Bulletin Board

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Lately, I have a Google Presentation obsession! I love that Google Presentation allows for easy editing and moving things around, unlike a Word or Google Doc. Google Presentation (and other Google Drive Apps) have lots of cool fonts, which is one of the reasons I like to use Google Presentation to print letters for bulletin boards. I recently found a great Maya Angelou quote on Pinterest that goes great with our "Thriving" theme that I mentioned in my post about my Growth Mindset Bulletin Board . I liked how there was a patterned background on this version of the quote on Pinterest . I thought it would make a fun and inspirational bulletin board inside the school counseling suite area. When I saw chevron wrapping paper at Target I knew I had to use it for the background! I used Google Drive Presentation to created the quote for the bulletin board. For the background I used teal chevron wrapping paper I bought at Target in the party supply aisle. I printed out the quo

A Growth Mindset Can Help You Thrive! Bulletin Board

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Last year I ran a book group for parents and caregivers.  I  decided to call the  book group "Thriving in the Middle" to counter the negative language surrounding middle school. You often see books and articles about surviving middle school or how middle school was the worst years of people's lives.  I was planning to incorporate the concept of "thriving" and how school counselors can help students thrive into other aspects of my school counseling programming this year.  I have been wracking my brain to come up with bulletin boards ideas to go with the thriving theme.  The first one I'll share is a growth mindset bulletin board.  Carol Dweck's book Mindset: The New Psychology of Success   discusses the difference between a growth mindset and a fixed mindset. Growth mindset is the idea that intelligence can be developed, whereas fixed mindset is the idea that intelligence is static. Growth mindset is popular trend currently in education. I haven't

September #SCCHAT Transcript: SMART Goals: Teaching Them, Writing Them, and Reaching Them

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The topic of the the September #SCCHAT was SMART Goals: Teaching Them, Writing Them, and Reaching Them.    The chat was moderated by Dylan Hackbarth (@dylanhackbarth) , a high school counselor from Washington D.C.. School counselors shared lesson ideas, tips for writing and reaching SMART Goals, and resources about SMART Goals.  You can view the transcript below or   read the full transcript here . For more information about #SCCHAT and transcripts from previous chats visit:  http://bit.ly/scchat-info . #SCCHAT occurs on the first Tuesday of the month unless otherwise specified. To add the #SCCHAT schedule to your calendar  click here . Join us for our September #SCCHAT on October 7, 2014 at 8pmEST.  The topic is Q&A with School Counseling Graduate Students  and will be moderated by Julia V. Taylor @juliavtaylor , author of The Girls in Real Life Situations (G.I.R.L.S.) group curriculum  (and many others!), speaker, doctoral student, and former high school counselor!

Promoting Higher Education Opportunities to Students

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Awhile back I wrote a post about requesting college swag and what to do with it .  This year one of my goals is to expose my students to higher education opportunities in the Pittsburgh, PA region.  Over the summer, I sent out emails to admissions offices at local colleges and universities in my county and surrounding counties requesting pennants to display in the school counseling area at my school. In the emails I explained how I would be using the pennants at my school. A few weeks ago I started receiving the pennants! I couldn't be more excited about the response I received so far! Today I hung up the my "All Students College & Career Ready!" banner  and the pennants I received so far. I am hoping to represent all of the colleges and universities in the Pittsburgh area and then expand my efforts to elsewhere in PA and beyond!  Below I included the exact message I sent to Duquesne University, where I am pursuing my doctoral degree.  I thought this migh