School Counselor Blog

It is hard for me to believe that a week ago I was in Montana presenting at the Montana Education Association and Montana Federation of Teachers (MEA-MFT) Educators' Conference. I am so excited that the Montana School Counselor Association invited me to be a keynote speaker and presenter for the conference. A HUGE THANK YOU to Alicia Godfrey for showing me a great time in Bozeman! My keynote titled You Are Not Alone: Connecting Through Social Media was about how school counselors can utilize Twitter, Facebook, Google+, and blogs to communicate with other school counselors professionally and create a professional learning network. I also presented two breakout sessions at the MEA-MFT Educators' Conference. In my session Blogging in 5 Easy Steps  I explained the benefits of blogging as a school counselor and showed participants just how easy it is to create a blog and start posting. In my session Tech Savvy School Counseling , I shared various technology tools that scho...

Empathy is our character education theme for October. I wanted to create a visual display somewhere related to empathy, and thought that one of the remaining "free" windows of the counseling suite would be the perfect place. Jen, a school counseling intern who is working with my co-counselor, found a great quote related to empathy. We created a colorful bulletin board on the windows to the left of the entrance of the school counseling office area. I love how it turned out! To make the bulletin board, I typed the quote into Google Docs using the font "Luckiest Guy." We printed the words on plain white paper, cut them with a paper cutter, and then glued the words to  black cardstock  or  colorful cardstock . We made the word "EMPATHY" using my  Cricut paper cutter . Tip: If you use 12 x 12 cardstock and cut it in half with a paper cutter, the cardstock will be the perfect size for gluing on the words! I created a Google Doc  so you can print the ...

In my latest post for the  Free Spirit Publishing's Blog , Supporting New Students Year Round ,  I share tips and information for school counselors and educators to welcome new students, even after the school year has begun. What tips do you have for helping welcoming new students to your school throughout the year? Please share your comments and ideas in the comment section of my post on the Free Spirit Blog! I started writing for  Free Spirit Publishing's Blog  in April of 2012. Check out the  Counselor's Corner  for more Free Spirit Publishing Blog Posts by me! I love  Free Spirit's books  and I am so excited to contribute to  Free Spirit's Blog , "a springboard of ideas for teachers, counselors, and anyone who cares about kids!" Comment below,  tweet ,  contact Danielle , or share on the  School Counselor Blog Facebook Page ! Danielle is a K-12 Certified School Counselor, Nationally Certifie...

Our October #SCCHAT was held on October 1, 2013.  The topic of the chat this month was   Bully Prevention Month Ideas: K-12   moderated by Dr. Susan Fuller ( @EElementarySC‎ ), elementary school counselor and author of the  Entirely Elementary School Counseling  blog. School counselors shared tons of ideas and resources for celebrating Bullying Prevention month at all levels, K-12. You can view the transcript below or read the full transcript here . For more information about #SCCHAT and transcripts from previous chats visit:  http://bit.ly/scchat-info . [ View the story "October #SCCHAT: Bullying Prevention Ideas K-12" on Storify ] #SCCHAT occurs on the first Tuesday of the month unless otherwise specified. To add the #SCCHAT schedule to your calendar  click here . Join us for the November #SCCHAT on November 5, 2013 at 8pmEST! The topic is  Lesson Plan Creation and Implementation  and will be moderated by Chris Wood ( @ChrisWoo...

As an educator, it can be difficult to juggle all the different aspects of your job and life outside of work. In my latest post for the  Free Spirit Publishing's Blog , Juggling it All ,  I share tips and information on how to juggle it all. What tips and tricks do you have for juggling all the things you have going on in your life as an educator? Please share your comments and ideas in the comment section of my post on the Free Spirit Blog! I started writing for  Free Spirit Publishing's Blog  in April of 2012. Check out the  Counselor's Corner  for more Free Spirit Publishing Blog Posts by me! I love  Free Spirit's books  and I am so excited to contribute to  Free Spirit's Blog , "a springboard of ideas for teachers, counselors, and anyone who cares about kids!" Comment below,  tweet ,  contact Danielle , or share on the  School Counselor Blog Facebook Page ! Danielle is a K-12 Certified Sch...

The next School Counselor Tweet Chat is on  Tuesday, October 1, 2013  at 8pm EST. The topic of the chat this month is  Bully Prevention Month Ideas: K-12   moderated by Dr. Susan Fuller ( @EElementarySC‎ ), elementary school counselor and author of the  Entirely Elementary School Counseling  blog. We will be chatting about ideas and resources to celebrate Bullying Prevention month at all levels, K-12. I strongly encourage those new to twitter to come and join us and participate! Even if you just watch and read the tweets you will learn so much! I archive each chat so that even if you aren't available to participate live you can read the chat later. We look forward to tweeting with you! The November #SCCHAT will be held on November 5, 2013 at 8pmEST. The topic is  Lesson Plan Creation and Implementation  and will be moderated by Chris Wood ( @ChrisWood415 ), high school counselor form Iowa. We will be chatting about ideas and resources f...

I was feeling the need to decorate the outside glass of the counseling suite area at my school. I wanted to make it very obvious where the school counselors are located and how we can support students. I have been thinking about this for awhile and then I remembered what a wise school counselor, Andrea Burston told me, "you don't have to reinvent the wheel." I tend to forget that just because I did something in my previous school doesn't mean I can't do it again! I have to remind myself constantly that the students I work with now don't know what I did before so it will be all new to them! So, I got the idea to decorate the large glass windows on the outside of the counseling suite area by revamping one of my favorite bulletin boards that I created in the past, my Feeling PUZZLED? bulletin board . With TONS of help from my co-counselor's intern, Jen, I revamped my Feeling Puzzled? board to make it fit the large window space.  (If you have been fol...