School Counselor Blog

Life has been crazy for me lately (in a good way!) and I have been trying to play catch up. There are so many things I want to update you on, but I don't know where to start. Diva's Day Out seemed as good of a place to start as any... so... here we go! On May 16th my co-school counselor and I hosted a Diva's Day Out for 4th and 5th grade girls. Diva's Day Out was a big success and girls are still talking about how much fun they had and how awesome it was! Yay! We scheduled Diva's Day Out on a day where we had a half day and received parental permission for the girls to stay after school from 12:30pm - 3:00pm. We had approximately 50 4th and 5th grade Divas in attendance! (Side note we also required all of the girls in our Girls on the Run and Girls on Track programs to participate... more about GOTR later!) During Diva's Day Out students participated in activities focusing on fitness, nutrition, self-esteem, relational aggression, and body image. We mad...

Lately I have been trying to come up with ways to make what I do more purposeful in an effort to avoid doing "Random Acts of Guidance." :) I decided to create ways to keep track of what I am doing how what I am doing aligns to  ASCA standards . The first thing I have created is a group session planner to store and record group sessions I facilitate with students. My goal is to make a group session planner for each of the groups I facilitate.  This will help me determine which  ASCA standards  I am addressing during each session. Using a group session planner will not only help me in the short term, but it will help me in the long term when I plan to facilitate the activity or lesson again! The first group planner I created is a  Self-Esteem Group Planner .  I created a PDF file of the  Self-Esteem Group Planner  you can download by clicking on the highlighted text or by clicking on the pictures! The first page of the  Sel...

Self-pillows are pillows that represent your personality. My school counselor colleague, Natasha, had the great idea of creating self-pillows as an activity during our groups for children who have a loved one in prison . Self-pillows would also be great as an activity for grief and loss groups or self-esteem groups! 1. Pick fabric The most important and first step of making a self-pillow is finding fabric! Choose a variety of patterns of fabric that you think your students would like. You can even ask students what some of their favorite things are so you have some fabrics that go along with their interests. Also, consider the topic of the group.  We chose fabrics that related to feelings associated with our group. Children experiencing the incarceration of a loved one, can feel like they do not want anyone to be around them and keep people out of their life. We found some fabric that has gates and dogs that says "Beware" and "Keep Out." A number of...

I am so excited to host the  School Counselor Blog Back to School Contest , which is 10 days of daily giveaways starting September 1st and ending on September 10th! Today is day six of the  School Counselor Blog Back to School Contest . Today's giveaway for the School Counselor Blog Back to School Contest  is Talk with Teens About What Matters to Them: Ready-to-Use Discussions on Stress, Identity, Feelings, Relationships, Family, and the Future   by Dr. Jean Sunde Peterson from  Free Spirit Publishing . Talk with Teens About What Matters to Them: Ready-to-Use Discussions on Stress, Identity, Feelings, Relationships, Family, and the Future   is a brand new book geared for students in grades 6-12 . I just received a review copy of this book from  Free Spirit Publishing  and I am excited to use it with the students I serve in grades 5-8. Talk with Teens About What Matters to Them   includes 75 guided discussions in six focus areas: ...

I am so excited to host the  School Counselor Blog Back to School Contest , which is 10 days of daily giveaways starting September 1st and ending on September 10th! Today is day four of the  School Counselor Blog Back to School Contest . Today's giveaway for the School Counselor Blog Back to School Contest  is  Girls in Real Life Situations: Group Counseling for Enhancing Social and Emotional Development: Grades K-5 (Book and CD)  by  Julia V. Taylor   and Shannon Trice-Black from  Research Press . Girls in Real Life Situations: Group Counseling for Enhancing Social and Emotional Development: Grades K-5  (Book and CD)  is great for students in kindergarten through fifth grade. The activities from G.I.R.L.S.   are great for  groups  on topics such as self-esteem,  grief and loss , children of incarcerated parents and beyond.  Some activities from  G.I.R.L.S.   would work with b...

I am so excited to host the  School Counselor Blog Back to School Contest , which is 10 days of daily giveaways starting September 1st and ending on September 10th! Today is day three of the  School Counselor Blog Back to School Contest . Today's giveaway for the S chool Counselor Blog Back to School Contest  is  Girls in Real Life Situations, Grades 6-12: Group Counseling Activities for Enhancing Social and Emotional Development (Book and CD)  by Julia V. Taylor   and Shannon Trice-Black from Research Press . Girls in Real Life Situations, Grades 6-12: Group Counseling Activities for Enhancing Social and Emotional Development  (Book and CD)  is one of my most used curricula.  I have used activities from  G.I.R.L.S.   in groups on topics such as self-esteem, grief and loss , children of incarcerated parents and beyond.  I have even used activities from  G.I.R.L.S  with boys (gasp!)! One of the ...

My fifth grade self-esteem group ended with a bang today!  Students left group empowered and booming with self-esteem! I used  Firework  to start a dialog about being proud of who you are and being true to yourself. I played Firework for students on my iPhone using my portable speaker . I gave them all a copy of the lyrics and asked them to pay careful attention to the words as the song was playing. Afterwards Firework  was over, we discussed the song and it's meaning. I asked students if there were any parts of the song that stuck out to them. One student stated that  "a paper bag drifting through the wind" feels "lonely and left out." Another student stated that "a house of cards one blow from caving in" would be easily "put down" or "pushed down." Students spoke of times when they felt down or when they felt like the did not have any friends. Students were eager to come up with a message of what the song meant to the...