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

The Chains of Friendship

Hello my wonderful readers! I hope everyone is having a great transition back from the winter break and the weather is treating you well wherever you may be! Things have been busy here in my building since we have been back from our break. Throw a snow day into the mix, and we have certainly hit the ground running!


I wanted to take a moment to write about an activity that I did in each of the second grade classrooms right before the break. In second grade, our curriculum is currently focusing on friendship, and what it means to be a good friend. In order to introduce the lesson, I first read "That's What a Friend Is" by P.K. Hallinan. This is a short, rhyming story, about all of the things that friends do together. Then, as a whole group, we talk about some of the other qualities of a friend. After we have a class definition along with some examples of friendship, I explain to the group that we are going to be a making a paper friendship chain.


The directions given to the class go like this. "Each of you is going to get a strip of colored paper with the name of one of your classmates written on it. Make sure you do not tell ANYONE whose name you have. It's a surprise! Once you have your paper, you are going to write what makes that person a good friend on your strip. You can decorate your strip however you want. Then, at the end of class, we are going to read them aloud and create a chain with them."


Before going into the class, I cut different colored strips of construction paper, and  I wrote each students name on a strip. I then passed them out to the class, making sure no student had their own name. I gave the students about 10 minutes to write their sentences and decorate their strips. Then, one by one, each student came up, told the class whose name they had, and what they think makes that person a good friend. Then, I stapled each strip into a chain.


When doing activities like this, I always tend to get a bit nervous, because you never know what a child might come up with. I always try to read each strip before the child reads it aloud to the class to make sure that it is appropriate and kind. The second graders did an awesome job with this and really built their fellow classmates up through this activity. Activities like this are always my favorite, because I truly have the opportunity to see the positive impact that is being made on the children, which ALWAYS makes the more difficult aspects of the job worth it.


Once all of the "Friendship Chains" were complete, I hung them up outside of my office for other students in the school to see. This year was the first time I did this activity, but I will definitely be doing it again! :-)

My "To Do" schedule!

I know, I know, I've really been slacking on my blog game lately. I'm sorry to those of you who are kind enough to keep reading my blog. I haven't abandoned you! But, I'm sure many of you know how hectic things can be in an elementary school in the weeks leading up to the winter break. It's been crazy! Fun, but certainly busy. Which actually leads me very nicely into the topic for today's blog post: SCHEDULING. My schedule, from day to day, is fluid to say the least. As the say, "the best laid plans often go astray". Each morning I look at my list of meetings, lessons, groups, and check-ins, and put a schedule together of when each of those things will happen. However, in this role, there are several things that come up throughout the course of the day, like students in conflict, and student in crisis, phone calls from parents, etc., that can throw that schedule into pandemonium.

When I first started out the school year, I had a desk calendar where I would write my schedule down for the week. However, as things came up and other things got rescheduled, the calendar started to look like one giant cross out and scribble. It was unmanageable, and I realized, unrealistic to keep a schedule like that.

My wonderful friend, Amanda Sheroff, at School Counseling A-Z, inspired my new scheduling process. Something she has started doing is keeping her schedule on a piece of laminated paper with a dry erase marker, so it can can easily be changed, added to, and edited throughout the school day. I've adopted this form of scheduling, and it has been wonderful. I have five laminated sheets of paper, one each day of the school week, that is broken down into categories like "meetings", "groups", "check-ins", and then I have a space at the top where I put the lessons that I am teaching that day. I display it on the filing cabinet next to my desk, so I can quickly refer to my schedule throughout the day and add and change things as they come up.

Here are examples of what my schedules look like:

1000 VIEWS :-) THANK YOU!

THANK YOU FOR READING! It makes me so happy to know that some of my thoughts and ideas are reaching you. I know that reading counseling blogs is one of the best resources I have found, and I hope this blog continues to turn into a place where other counselors can come for inspiration or ideas! THANK YOU AGAIN! :-)

"Rocking" Good Character

Character education is a huge part, in my opinion, of what makes schools successful. It can be difficult for children to function effectively in school when behaviors, either their own behaviors or the behaviors of their peers, are less than stellar. However, getting students to buy in to character education can be a struggle. It is important to make the character education plan fun, relatable, and rewarding for students.

At my school, a few years back, an awesome committee of teachers and staff developed six "keystones" of good character to be highlighted throughout the course of the school year. Each keystone has it's own definition and expectations, and through different activities each keystone is introduced throughout the course of the school year. The keystones are: responsibility, conservation, respect, citizenship, trustworthiness, and appreciation.

This year, our keystones are being celebrated with a "you rock" theme, which was inspired by Entirely Elementary School Counseling's "You rock kindness" bulletin board. I used several of the same ideas, but modified it to include each keystone of good character.


At the end of October, we had a school wide "Keystone Kick Off Assembly". The assembly included 12 students from out 5th grade class that helped present each of the keystones. Six of the students read the definition of each keystone. Next, we had six students who each had an actual rock with a keystone written on it come up to the stage. On the stage, we had a camera focused on a bowl of water. Each student took their rock, placed it in the bowl of water, and discussed the "ripple effect" that occurs when students are responsible, respectful, trustworthy, appreciative, or when they are good citizens, as well as when they conserve. The students talked about the effects their good behavior and character can have on the entire school population.

To go along with our "YOU ROCK" theme, we have tickets to be handed out to students when they are "rocking" the keystone that is the focus of that month. For example, this month, the keystone is "responsibility". When students do something responsible, they get a "you rock" ticket, which is put in an envelope. At the end of each week, one student from each class has their name randomly chosen from the envelope, read over the announcements, and then they come to the office to receive a pencil and get their picture taken for the "YOU ROCK" bulletin board.

The response to the program has been outstanding so far. The students are very into the "YOU ROCK" tickets and the staff has been very supportive, making sure that they hand out tickets to reward good behavior. Hopefully, things continue on this path for the rest of the keystones! :-)

Run for Autism

Since college, I have had the awesome opportunity to work with school aged children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders. I say awesome because that is truly how I feel about each of these experiences. I did my student teaching in a full inclusion first grade classroom where I had students who were on the spectrum. Many of my favorite moments from those 4 months were when I felt that I had really made an impact and a connection with those students. I left feeling that I learned more from them than they learned from me. After college, while I was in graduate school, I worked in an autistic support classroom. That experience, while certainly a challenge in many ways, was one of the best experiences of my life. Now, as a school counselor, I am lucky to have the opportunity to work with many children on the autism spectrum every day in social skills groups, de-escalation strategies, and sensory strategies.

Children (and adults) diagnosed with autism are inspiring in so many ways. It is hard to imagine some of things that these children go through on a day to day basis, and they consistently persevere. I have learned so much from working with children with autism about strength, courage, and never giving up, no matter how difficult something may be to get through. Because of these experiences and the strength of those with autism spectrum disorders, I have decided to partner with the "Organization for Autism Research" to Run for Autism. Next Sunday, November 17th, I will be running the Philadelphia Half Marathon (13.1 miles), for OAR. I have set my fundraising goal at $600, and I have until December 17th (one month post race) to raise the funds. I decided to share this story with my readers in hopes that some of you may be able to support this fantastic cause. With your help, we can raise the money so many children and adults need to fund research studies in order to find highly effective treatments, tools, and strategies to improve the lives of people with autism. I have provided the link to my personal fundraising page here:

http://my.e2rm.com/personalPage.aspx?registrationID=2169206&langPref=en-CA

Thank you all so much!