Proud To Be ME!

If there is one thing that I hope that I can accomplish as a school counselor, it is to have students embrace themselves and be proud of who they are and what makes them unique and special. I can remember back to elementary school when I wanted to have all the coolest clothes and be a part of the popular fads. Being different was scary. I never want my kids to feel like they should be scared to be different or to be interested in unique hobbies and activities. Addressing the importance of being unique is something that I try to do across the grade levels in one way or another.

In third grade, we recently completed an adapted version of the "The Crayon Box That Talked" lesson that I blogged about earlier this year in my "Bibliotherapy...What is THAT?!" post here. For this lesson, I take two versions of the same picture (I chose to draw a spring like scene with flowers and sunshine and green grass since we officially have Spring FEVER here in the Northeast). One version of the picture is drawn in black and white and the other version of the picture is all different colors. This segues into a discussion about which picture is more exciting. Typically, all students choose the colored picture. We talk about how boring life would be if we were all exactly the same, just like the black and white picture was boring. Next, I read the story, which is a really a poem that was expanded into a short children's book. After discussing the message, how each crayon brings something special to the completed picture, we talk about that in terms of the classroom. Each student represents a crayon, and without each and every one of them, the classroom picture wouldn't be complete.

The final part of this activity is to create your own unique hand print. Each student traces their hand, and on each finger writes an interest, something that they like, or something that they feel makes them unique. Then, they can decorate it however they choose to show their individuality. Once all of the hands are decorated and cut out, students are invited to share. At the end, I collect each of the hands and glue them onto a ribbon to be hung up somewhere in the school.

Kindess Week

First off, let me apologize for the length of time since my last post. It is has been a ridiculously long time, and I am feeling very guilty about it. I have a lot of updates, so over the next few weeks, I am going to make a concentrated effort to update at lease once a week with the things we have been doing! It has been a hectic couple of months in my building. We are in the middle of a large construction project, so there has been a lot of excitement with opening our new gym and cafeteria, packing, and moving classrooms into the new wing. By September, the renovation should be complete, and we will all be in new classrooms, offices, and buildings. It has been an exciting time. We are also in the process of completing PSSAs, which have been going very well. It has been a very exciting time here, and the next several weeks leading up to the end of the school year are going to be jam packed with even more exciting things like field trips, Mayfair, and 5th grade graduation.

Currently, we are in the middle of "Kindness Week" here at my school. We are so incredibly lucky to have an amazing group of girl scouts, as well as an amazing group of troop moms, who have organized this wonderful week for our students. The girls made blue rainbow loom bracelets for every student in the school, along with an act of kindness for them to complete throughout the week. Examples of the acts of kindness include "Say 'thank you' to the school nurse" and "give someone a compliment" and "say please and thank you". They also made signs that they have hung up all over the building, reminding students and staff how important it is to always be kind, and how far a little bit of kindness can go. Tomorrow, blue pinwheels will be handed out to each student and families will be asked to display them in their windows or in their yards as a way of showing their community support. Also, each day this week, words of kindness have been read during the morning announcements. The students have been so excited about celebrating "Kindness Week", and I wanted to give major props to the girls and the parents that made it happen.

As a part of kindness week, I have been trying to gear the classroom lessons that I have been doing toward this message. In second grade, we started our bucket filler lessons, which fits seamlessly with the theme of "Kindness Week". Bucket filler lessons are something that I do at each grade level, adapted to the age level of the group I'm addressing, because I think the message is so important. For these lessons, I use the book "Have You Filled a Bucket Today?" by Carol McCloud. First, I introduce the idea of what it means to be a bucket filler. Does it mean you literally fill up a bucket with water and give it to someone? What does it mean? I ask the children to think about it, and we discuss their ideas for about 10 minutes. Then, I read them the story, stopping along the way to ask for their thoughts and discuss their reactions. Finally, at the end, we talk about all of the ways that they can be bucket fillers. Being a bucket filler means being kind and treating someone in a way that makes them feel special and loved. They complete a worksheet where they write a sentence about how they can fill a bucket, and they draw a picture of that. This is a two part lesson, and in my next lesson, they will be creating their own buckets out of paper bags, and students will each have the opportunity to fill the bucket of their classmates.

In third grade, we are discussing the topic of bullying, and specifically what it means to be an upstander or a bystander when they see someone being bullied. An upstander is someone who does something to try to help the situation, while a bystander is someone who sees what is happening and is aware that someone is being bullied, but they don't do anything to stop it. We read the book "Say Something" by Peggy Moss, and we discuss who was being a bystander and who was being an upstander. Then, I ask each student to think of a way in which they could be an upstander. In each class, we created a classroom book called "All It Takes Is One Voice". Each child created a page for the book where they wrote what they could do to be an upstander, and they illustrated their page as well. I am going to laminate them and bind them, and give them to the teachers to keep in their classrooms as a reference or for kids to look at when they need an idea of what they can do if they see someone being picked on or treated unkindly.

Overall, the message in my building is to always be kind, always treat each other with respect, but having a week where we are specifically celebrating that message really shows the importance of it to the kids. I love seeing the students making sure that they complete their act of kindness each day. The more aware that we can make the kids of how important and valued those behaviors are, the more likely they are to