School Counselor Blog

Red Ribbon week (October 23 - 31, 2012) and National Character Counts week (October 21 - 27, 2012) overlap this year. Babara from The Corner on Character shared great ideas for a week worth of themes to combine Red Ribbon Week and Character Counts week! Barbara's blog is chalk full of character education ideas, so I was very excited when she submitted this SUPER idea for the School Counselor Spotlight!  Barbara writes: I wanted to share our Red Ribbon/Character Counts Week theme and what we've got planned for a school-home connection. This year our theme is Character Is Our Super Power.  We have events planned for each day of the week. We are wearing "I Can. I Care." Superman style t-shirts.  For Red Ribbon/Character Counts week, I'm sending home "Character is Our Super Power" Parent Homework to ask parents to tell us what is their child's super power.  I can't WAIT to get these back because I think t...

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 two of the School Counselor Blog Back to School Contest . Today's giveaway for the S chool Counselor Blog Back to School Contest is Really Good Friends Show Really Good Character Poster Set from Really Good Stuff . There are eight adorable posters in the  Really Good Friends Show Really Good Character  Poster Set  showcasing positive character traits: Responsibility, Caring, Acceptance, Trustworthiness, Fairness, Honesty, Citizenship, and Respect! The  Really Good Friends Show Really Good Character  Poster Set  comes with a corresponding activity guide that you can download for free even if you don't win the item! The activity guide has ideas for how to use the poster set in your school and includes reproducibles you can use to teach students about positive ch...

After hearing so many good things about "bucket filling" books I had to try them out for myself.  I recently got "Have You Filled a Bucket Today?" and "Fill a Bucket: A Guide to Daily Happiness for the Young Child" .  About "Have You Filled a Bucket Today?" The concept of "bucket filling" in "Have You Filled a Bucket Today?" is quite simple.  Everyone has an invisible bucket with them at all times. When our bucket is full we feel happy, when our bucket is empty we feel pretty bad. "Have You Filled a Bucket Today?" explains many specific ways to fill a bucket and many specific ways a bucket can be emptied. Our invisible bucket can be filled by kindness and caring or emptied by negativity and meanness. One of the ways a bucket can be emptied is by "bucket dippers." "Bucket dippers" are bullies who try to empty other people's buckets in an attempt to fill their own. What "bucket dipp...

A reader asked me where she could get lessons on RESPECT for middle school. Q: My hat off to you!  As a counselor we many hats, and you seems to be wearing many more than that.  I appreciate reading the blogs which I’ve signed up to receive from you.  I would like to know if you have any articles or activities dealing with “RESPECT” and “Personal Self”?  If you do, I hope you would share them with me.  Do you have an archive of your counselor’s blogs?   I’m a counselor in the middle school and I love it! A: There are many different websites and books I use to find lessons. Below, I have written about a new resource I have use to find lessons on respect (and much more!) and other resources I have used in the past. Also, see the bottom of the School Counselor Blog website for an archive of all of my previous posts! Safe and Caring Schools I recently got the Safe and Caring Schools series from Free Spirit Publishing for my school. The series is g...

A reader asked me if I had any ideas or resources for building leadership skills.  Q:  I asked [a teacher] if she had some thoughts on what would be helpful to her kids. The first thing that came to her mind was helping kids build leadership skills... or becoming comfortable with not being followers of what the cool group is doing,  but to able to stand up on their own and building/becoming comfortable with who they are. I am not sure where I would go for ideas... Do you have any ideas of a session that might work?   A: I would do an activity that builds on students strengths. I would do some activities that focus on the questions "What are you good at?" "What do you like?" "What are some of the goals you have?" "How are you going to accomplish those goals?" There are specific American School Counseling Association (ASCA) National Standards in the personal/social, academic, and career domains that those questions are related to. You can learn...

I was looking for ideas for a lesson on RESPECT for 7th grade. I just came across some cool ideas on the National Education Association (NEA)  website. NEA featured  RESPECT lessons  from Education World .   Check them out! Where do you find respect lessons? Comment below,  email me ,  tweet , 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.  Contact Danielle via  email , follow her on  twitter , and become a fan of the  School Counselor Blog Facebook Page .

I informed all of the fifth grade teachers that I would like to facilitate guidance lessons in their classrooms. I asked the teachers what their main concerns or problems were so that I could facilitate a lesson based on their needs. The first request I received was for a lesson on responsibility and good character. I utilized the responsibility lesson  I found on the Character Counts website.   Character Counts has lots of free lessons and activities for download. Although the lesson says that it is for students ages six to nine, I tailored the lesson for the fifth graders I was working with.  The lesson includes words and definitions. I printed the words in orange and the definitions in white. I cut out the words and definitions so that the students could choose them out of a cloth bucket. Once each student picked a word or definition out of the bucket, I instructed the students to read their word or definition. When they finished reading, I instructed...