4th/5th grade Counselor Welcome
What an exciting week at SSES! It's hard to believe that I saw 114 - 4th grade students and 134 - 5th grade students in two days. I decided to introduce myself using a slideshow of various pictures so that the kids could see some of my interests.
We reviewed how to get to see the school counselor like asking parents to email me, asking a teacher to come see me or a self-referral. The self-referral forms hang on my office door and look like the image below. I told the students to make sure to put their name, date, teacher and the size of their problem on the referral form.
What's a small rock, medium rock or large rock problem? I had a student "assistant" hold out their hand and demonstrate how to determine the size of problem. I started with a silly problems like I didn't get my favorite pop tart flavor that morning and I put a small pebble in their hand. The student's laughed and gave other examples of small rock problems, like dropping their books, being tired or having a bike wreck. We moved on to medium rock problems that you might need help with like friendship concerns or struggling with school work. Almost every time, someone offered the situation of bullying or a safety concern and I pulled out a huge rock and placed it in the hand of my "assistant" and said, that's a large rock problem and needs immediate help! Everyone started laughing as the student struggled to balance the large rock along with the other small and medium rocks. I then held out a worksheet and pencil and ask the student to complete it. The classes laughed as the student struggled to take the worksheet and pencil. I pointed out that sometimes it's too difficult to manage balancing all the "rocks" in our lives while trying to do our best work and that's where a trusted adult or the counselor comes in...
Of course, the kids will say that their favorite part of my lesson was the Kahoot! that reviewed all the counselor info I had shared!
If you don't know, Kahoot! is an interactive game that the whole class can play with and against other teams. Can you believe that it took them about 20 seconds to get their devices, log onto the website, enter their code, team name and be ready to play...It's pretty amazing how quickly students can effectively access technology (well, compared to me!). Some of the teachers came to me later in the day and said, the kids were begging them for more Kahoots in the academic areas...Thanks, Mrs. Bird! You're Welcome!
