School Counselor Blog

I revamped the  School Counselor Blog Store ! It is much easier to navigate now and much more organized. You can purchase banners , polos , t-shirts , Career Cafe materials , "To Proficiency... and BEYOND!" testing themed items , mugs and eventually much more! Here are two examples of new items: Owl version of the "What You Say in Here, Stays in Here" Banner "WHO can help you?" Ultra-Soft Unisex T-Shirt FRONT BACK Check out these and more items at the School Counselor Blog Store ! What items would like to see in the School Counselor Blog Store?  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 ,  Tw...

Career Café is an opportunity for students to learn about careers from individuals in their community.  One of my biggest success as a school counselor  has been s tarting a Career Café at my school. Students absolutely love Career Café, it is a blast to host, and it meets  ASCA Student Standard in the Career Domain .   Career Cafe can also be geared toward any level - elementary, middle, or high school! I have gotten tons of inquiries and questions about hosting a Career Café. I am creating a series of posts to explain Career Café in greater detail and provide you with the tools you need to start a Career Café at your school.  Selecting Students to Participate  One the most frequently asked questions I receive about Career  Café is "how do you decide which students you invite?" This answer may be different for everyone who is reading this post! We all work in different size schools with differe...

Career Café is an opportunity for students to learn about careers from individuals in their community.  One of my biggest success as a school counselor  has been s tarting a Career Café at my school. Students absolutely love Career Café, it is a blast to host, and it meets  ASCA Student Standard in the Career Domain .   Career Cafe can also be geared toward any level - elementary, middle, or high school! I have gotten tons of inquiries and questions about hosting a Career Café. I am creating a series of posts to explain Career Café in greater detail and provide you with the tools you need to start a Career Café at your school.  Since starting Career Café I have hosted 13 speakers (8 the first year and 7 the second year).  I was worried at first that I would not be able to find speakers, but in the words of Kevin Costner from  Field of Dreams , "If you build it, they will come!"  Recru...

Career Café is an opportunity for students to learn about careers from individuals in their community.  One of my biggest success as a school counselor  has been s tarting a Career Café at my school. Students absolutely love Career Café, it is a blast to host, and it meets  ASCA Student Standard in the Career Domain .   Career Cafe can also be geared toward any level - elementary, middle, or high school! I have gotten tons of inquiries and questions about hosting a Career Café. I am creating a series of posts to explain Career Café in greater detail and provide you with the tools you need to start a Career Café at your school.    There are a number of ways that you can determine how students are selected to participate in Career Café. Students can be chosen based on results of career interest inventories, select which Career Cafés they would like to attend, or entire classrooms or grade levels...

Career Café is an opportunity for students to learn about careers from individuals in their community.  One of my biggest success as a school counselor  has been s tarting a Career Café at my school. Students absolutely love Career Café, it is a blast to host, and it meets  ASCA Student Standard in the Career Domain .   Career Cafe can also be geared toward any level - elementary, middle, or high school! I have gotten tons of inquiries and questions about hosting a Career Café. I am creating a series of posts to explain Career Café in greater detail and provide you with the tools you need to start a Career Café at your school.  Now that you have determined a  location for your Career Café , it is time to think about when and how often you would like to host it.  Setting a Schedule One of the great things about Career  Café  is  you  can determine how often and wh...

Career Café is an opportunity for students to learn about careers from individuals in their community.  One of my biggest success as a school counselor  has been s tarting a Career Café at my school. Students absolutely love Career Café, it is a blast to host, and it meets  ASCA Student Standard in the Career Domain .   Career Cafe can also be geared toward any level - elementary, middle, or high school! I have gotten tons of inquiries and questions about hosting a Career Café. I am creating a series of posts to explain Career Café in greater detail and provide you with the tools you need to start a Career Café at your school.  First up... Location, Location, Location The first step in preparing to host a Career Café at your school is determining a location for the Career Café. When thinking about a space, you want to determine how many students you will be able to accomodate in the...

My students and I have been loving the partnership I formed with our county career and technology center! In the past four weeks we have benefitted from a tour of the career and technical school for 5th grade students and guest speakers for Career Café sessions! Students from the culinary arts program, cosmetology program, and veterinary assistant program have visited our school for  Career Café  sessions with my 5th though 8th grade students. Not only are my students learning about careers that match their interests, but they are learning about the career and technical school and the programs they have to offer!  I am hoping that this early exposure will ignite students' interest and help them see the connection between elementary/middle school and their high school opportunities. Our  Career Café  speaker today was a senior in the veterinary assistant program. She brought along Wally, a resident cat in the program. The students absolutely loved that the...

This past Tuesday I took my 5th grade students to our local career and technical school for a tour. I have created a great partnership with two of the school counselors at the career and technical school. They have been amazing and instrumental in helping me set up a tour for 5th grade and providing speakers for Career Cafe sessions (more about that soon)! My students and I have been looking forward to this trip to the career and technical school for months! In preparation for our trip I was trying to think of ways I could get some bonus career time with my students on the bus. I thought it would be fun for them to try to look for careers out their windows on the bus. I came up with a a simple Career Scavenger Hunt for students to complete on the way to and from the career an technical school. The kids LOVED it! The teachers loved it too because the students had EXCELLENT bus behavior! It was so rewarding to see them so engaged and excited about looking for careers out their b...

The First School Counselor Tweet Chat of the New Year was held on January 3, 2012 at 8pmEST! We chatted about school counseling New Years resolutions and soultions . We also chatted about ideas for celebrating  National School Counseling Week ! School Counselors shared tons of great ideas and resources, including ideas for parent involvement and starting a Career Cafe at your school! Check out the full chat transcript ! To access all of the tweets with the hashtag #scchat,  click here . The next School Counselor Tweet Chat is on February 7th at 8pmEST. We will be chatting about Tech Savvy School Counselor Essentials ! View the 2012 School Counselor Tweet Chat schedule and transcripts here . For information on how to participate in a future School Counselor Tweet Chat, click here ! Click here for transcripts of the 2011 School Counselor Tweet Chats. School Counselor Tweet Chat is a collaboration between  School Counselor Blog  and  SCOPE ....

It was difficult to pick my 11 favorite posts of 2011 considering I wrote 108 posts this year, not counting this post! 2011 was a pretty great year. I had the opportunity to present at the  ASCA conference in Seattle, WA , started School Counselor Tweet Chats , hosted lots of giveaways , made video posts , and much more! I have enjoyed connecting with you in 2011 and can't wait to see what is in store for 2012! Below I outlined 11 of my favorite posts and why they made the list. Serving Up Career Standards Through Community Involvement One of my biggest accomplishments of the 2010-2011 school year was starting Career Cafe at my school.  It has been an amazing ride since implementing it.  Students are so excited to learn about careers first-hand from people in their community.  I am learning so much from the speakers too! Career Cafe  is one of my favorite programs I implement as a school counselor. Many School Counselor Blog readers have emailed me...