School Counselor Blog

Editable Friendship Bracelet Style Bulletin Board I have wanted to create a friendship bracelet style bulletin board ever since I saw them all over Instagram last year. I made this simple, customizable, and editable - "In My Middle School Era" bulletin board using my Canva educator account . To create this bulletin board for your school or office, access my  EXACT "In My Middle School Era" Friendship Bracelet Style Bulletin Board  or access the Editable Friendship Bracelet Bulletin Board template . If you use the  Editable Friendship Bracelet Bulletin Board template  you can then change the letter beads to write things like: In My Friendship Era In My "SCHOOL NAME" Era In my Kindness Era ...or whatever you want the letter beads to spell! 😉 To assemble the "In My Middle School Era" Bulletin Board follow the steps below. Friendship Bracelet Style Bulletin Board Letters & Beads I saved the whole file as a PDF and then pr...

Before Thanksgiving, I started a position as a school counselor for grades 4-8 .  I am excited to work with the students, faculty, staff, and parents! I have lots of ideas and I can't wait to put my ideas into action! One of my main goals is to establish an environment of respect and peace with the grades I serve. I am starting an Anger Management and Friendship Skill group for fourth grade boys.  I purchased the book Seeing Red: An Anger Management and Peacemaking Curriculum for Kids by Jennifer Simmonds . The book seems like a great resource. It has interactive activities at the end of each session.  A member of the Yahoo Elementary School Counselor Listerv recommended the book.  I will give updates about using the curriculum with my students. I am also looking forward to facilitating classroom lessons using The Peacemakers Violence Prevention Program created by Jeremy P. Shapiro. All of the counselors in my district facilitate the Peacemakers lessons to 6...

I am facilitating character education with kindergarten through fourth grade. I have a variety of themes I am touching on in the classes. For friendship, I worked with third and fourth grade to create their own "friendship raps." Before creating their raps, I had each class listen a rap "Something for Me, Something for You," found on the CD in the Teaching Tolerance "I Will be Your Friend" educator kit. The students really enjoyed the rap. After listening to the rap, I had the students talk about what they learned from the rap. They learned messages such as "you should respect people," "we should be friends with people, it doesn't matter what color we are," and "you should include other people." I then instructed the students to each come up with a line to make a unique friendship rap as a class. The students were very enthusiastic and came up with some great lines. I had each student raise his or her hand and sha...