School Counselor Blog

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...

I have been looking for the perfect journal for individual and group counseling and I have finally found it! Really Good Stuff Ready to Decorate™ Journals are a dream come true for individual and group counseling. The Ready to Decorate™Journals are blank on the outside and have one blank page and one lined page next to each other. The journal is 7" by 9" and has 64 pages. The Ready to Decorate™Journals are available to purchase in packs of 36 or packs of 144 . They are a great price too! The Ready to Decorate™ Journals is $1.50 per student for 36 and $ 1.25 per student for 144 plus shipping and handling. Students enjoy personalizing their journals and making them their own. The front of the Ready to Decorate™ Journal is blank, which makes it easy to personalize.  Students in my 8th grade girls group enjoyed decorating the front of their journals. I instructed the girls how to decoupage the front of their journals using magazine cut outs , Mod Podge , and foam pa...

A reader asked for suggestions of where to get good deals on bulk pencils for incentives and giveaways. Q: I love reading your blog you have some great ideas.  I had a quick question.  Do you have a place were you buy pencils in bulk?  I want some pencils as small incentives for kids and I am having a hard time finding some cheap pencils in bulk.  I'm probably looking for 2-300; do you have any recommendations for me? A: Thanks for reading my blog! I am glad you are finding great ideas here! Here are some recommendations I have for places to get good deals on bulk pencils. I have ordered from all of these websites before.   Amazon Amazon has lots of different kinds of incentive pencils, including Dr. Seuess , specific holidays , birthday and more. I created a section on my Amazon Store for Incentives & Giveaways , where I included my favorites. I personally like the Raymond Geddes pencils the most. Raymond Geddes has a website with more designs,...

I recently discovered Smilemakers , a company owned by Staples. Smilemakers slogan is "Stickers, toys, and prizes from Smilemakers help you make kids smile!" Smilemakers has some great products school counselors can utilize. Below,  I outline the products I purchased and how I plan to use them. I also give suggestions of other products from Smilemakers school counselors may find useful. Conversation Cubes I purchased conversation cubes from Smilemakers to use in my group counseling sessions. I like to do an ice breaker before each session to help students get to know each other and feel comfortable. The conversation cubes are great for this because students can roll the cube and answer the question. The conversation cubes are a big time saver for me! Before I purchased the conversation cubes,  I used a paper box template to for my icebreaker questions. The paper box served its purpose, but I found I needed to keep making them over and over again because they go...

Each week I will be selecting an item for Fabulous Find Friday. If you have a suggestion for a Fabulous Find,  email me  and I will tryit out! Your Fabulous Find may be Featured on a Future Friday! ;) This Friday's Fabulous Find is a collapsible cargo crate .  This collapsible cargo crate has definitely been a life-saver. As a school counselor, I am constantly lugging around all kinds of strange things. My collapsible cargo crate can fit books, materials, tote bags, toys, and much more. I have used my collapsible cargo crate to cart materials to classrooms for lessons and bring materials to and from school. I will be using my collapsible cargo crate to pack up my office for the end of the school year.   When I was still an intern, I saw teachers using collapsible carts with wheels but I had no idea where they got them. I ordered mine from Amazon almost two years ago and it is holding out great. The  collapsible cargo crate is space saving becau...

I started new feature on School Counselor Blog called "Fabulous Find Friday."  Fabulous Find Friday is a way for me to highlight specific resources and items I use in my everyday work as a school counselor and how I utilize them. Each month I will give a recap of the Fabulous Finds featured for that month.  Here is a recap of the first five fabulous finds: 1. Bubbles : Bubbles can be used in classroom guidance lessons, group sessions, and individual sessions with students. I have used bubbles with students of all ages. Adults love them too! 2. No Spill Travel Mug : If you are in need of a great travel mug for coffee, tea, or whatever else you fancy, look no further! I love that I can carry all my bags out the door with no worries about spills thanks to this no spill travel mug ! 3. Balloons : Balloons are not just for parties! I have used balloons to teach deep breathing and about anger in classroom guidance lessons, group sessions and individual sessions....

Each week I will be selecting an item for Fabulous Find Friday. If you have a suggestion for a Fabulous Find,  email me  and I will try it out! Your Fabulous Find may be Featured on a Future Friday! ;) This Friday's Fabulous Find is the  Altec Lansing iM-237 Orbit Ultraportable Speaker . I decided to feature the  Altec Lansing iM-237 Orbit Ultraportable Speaker  as a fabulous find this week after receiving many questions and comments about  the speaker I used  during my presentation at the Pennsylvania School Counselor's Association (PSCA)  Conference on " Social Networking for School Counselors. "  The  Altec Lansing iM-237 Orbit Ultraportable Speaker  is definitely fabulous! I have used the  Altec Lansing Speaker  during individual sessions, group sessions, classroom lessons, and presentations. The  Altec Lansing Speaker  plugs into a headphone jack on most electronic devices.  The  Al...

Each week I will be selecting an item for Fabulous Find Friday. If you have a suggestion for a Fabulous Find,  email me  and I will try it out! Your Fabulous Find may be Featured on a Future Friday! ;) This Friday's Fabulous Find is Prezi ! Prezi is an exciting and innovative way to present information. I saw a Prezi presentation at a Response to Intervention and Instruction (RtiI) training. I was immediately captivated by the Prezi presentation!  Prezi  is unlike anything I ever saw before! The first thing I did when I got home from the training was a Google search for Prezi to find out more about it. I discovered educators can get a free Prezi account! Needless to say I was thrilled! The Prezi website is great! The  Prezi Academy has tutorials for learning Prezi basics and more advanced  Prezi  techniques. There is a Prezi gallery called the Prezi showcase where you can watch, use, and share public Prezis . Prezis can be made private o...

Each week I will be selecting an item for Fabulous Find Friday. If you have a suggestion for a Fabulous Find,  email me  and I will try it out! Your Fabulous Find may be Featured on a Future Friday! ;) Today's Fabulous Find is BALLOONS! I use balloons in a variety of ways with students in classroom guidance lessons, group sessions, and individual sessions. I have used balloons to teach deep breathing techniques by demonstrating how you have to take a deep breath to make a balloon fill with air. This can be used to teach students who have difficulty calming down when they are angry or anxious. I have also used balloons to teach about anger management. In a classroom setting, I have two students volunteer to be my “helpers.” One student receives a red balloon (symbolizing anger) and the other student receives a blue balloon (symbolizing cooling down or calmness).  I read scenarios aloud that might cause someone to become upset, such as "someone took bumped into you i...

With mother's day just around the corner (it's Sunday!) I decided to include a fabulous find that you could buy for yourself, or you could give your mother for Mother's Day! Ok, so the Oxo Good Grips Plastic LiquiSeal Travel Mug is not exactly a counseling resource, but it is a fabulous find! Buying a coffee mug that doesn't spill could be related to self-care. ;) If you are anything at all like me you probably juggle bags, lunch, keys, and other random items when you are leaving for work. I usually end up spilling coffee on the floor or myself when I am carrying too much. I was at Target the other day and I spotted this travel mug . It caught my attention because it was pink, but after reading the label with the "no-spill" claim, I had to try it out. I took it home and filled it up with coffee the next morning. The Oxo Good Grips Plastic LiquiSeal Travel Mug has a button on the lid that you can click to the down position to drink and click to the up...