1. Get out of your office
It might be tempting to be in your office and set up your space. However, you probably won't meet many new people that way either. Get out and walk around!

2. Share what you love about your job
Excitement is contagious- when you talk to your new coworkers, share what excites you about being a counselor. A great counseling program needs support from your stakeholders in order to be successful. Start building that support day one.

3. Offer to help
See someone setting up their room and struggling with those huge sheets of bulletin board paper? Offer to help. Someone bringing in boxes from their car? Offer to help. As counselors, we want to be known as the helpful type!

4. Spend some time in the work room. 
This is where the action happens. Laminate something, make some copies, whatever it takes. Lots happens in the work room and you'll get a good feel for how the school works. 

5. Make a plan to start.
Elementary counselors are often the only one at their school. If you wait for others to fill your to-do list, they will. Make sure you make a plan about what you want to accomplish in the first few weeks so you don't lose sight of your goals for the year.

Wow. I've been so busy creating that I forgot sharing (or maybe it's playing around with my new Erin Condren planner) - the last Fresh on Friday was May 15th and I've made 5 new things since then! So here goes...

I have two great literacy-based lessons: Elmer and Kaulu's Brother. You can read all about how to connect literacy to your counseling lessons here.  I love both of these stories and they connect to two of my favorite lessons. In Elmer, we learn about accepting differences both in others and in yourself. In Kaulu's brother, we follow Kaulu as he overcomes many obstacles to save his brother. This is an old Oahu story and the kids love the giant dog, enormous shark, and great waves.

With my last two items, you get 4 lessons to use with your students. The first, is the K-2 Counselor introduction. This uses pictures to introduce the role of the school counselor and ends with learning calm down strategies. I like to incorporate a skill in each and every lesson. If I include a calm down component to my first lesson, I am able to reference those strategies all year long. This lesson includes lots of cute graphics and pictures- I think it's really fun!

In the K-2 Conflict Resolution pack, you get three lessons all about learning tone of voice, perspective taking, and I Feel statements. You may have seen my Fairy Tale I Feel Statements in yesterday's post or on Instagram.  These are fun lessons that include important skills while still being fun. There are no worksheets- just role plays, group work, and active learning!

Have fun and as always, these will be free til Monday! If you download, please (pretty please) leave feedback on TPT. 

I'm now oninstagram! I'd love for you to follow me. 
My first post is a fave from my hot-off-the-pressesConflict Resolution for K-2. 

School is a high stakes place these days. Whether you like it or not, every staff member is being asked how they contribute to the bottom line. That bottom line in schools is student learning as measured by some type of testing. So what do you do? I have talked about my academic achievement groups  as a Tier 2 intervention. Today, I would like to talk about Tier 1 instruction for use with your entire school: literacy integration through read aloud during counseling lessons. 

(PS- if you'd like to know more about Tiered Interventions, check out my professional development presentation.)

Many of my lessons involve reading a book aloud to the class as a way to open discussion before some type of game or activity. Did I just give away my secret formula?! Recently, I was discussing read alouds with a colleague and mentioned a few of the ways that I like to integrate literacy skills. To help, I've created a FREE one page go-to-guide for integrating literacy into counseling lessons that I've included at the bottom of this post. 

I have also recently posted two new literacy focused lessons on Teachers Pay Teachers that I wanted to share with you.  The first is based on the book Elmer by David McKee. This is an adorable book about an elephant named Elmer who is patchwork color. This book explores how being different can be special. 

I love this book! The kids really connect with it. It has great text-to-world and text-to-self connections. Each class tends to find something different in the meaning and it always sparks serious debate. Some classes notice that patchwork skin vs elephant skin is analogous to race and skin color. Some classes note that sometimes people think they don't fit in when they really do. This story is wonderful!


You can download the lesson plans and the printable activities here. 

The second lesson is based on the ancient story of Kaulu and his brother. I first encountered this story in the Ka-ulu the Strong DVD. Unfortunately, it is out of print. Because this is a fable (and not written by the storyteller himself), I re-wrote the story in my own words for this lesson. To summarize, Kaulu has to be responsible (or persevere) to rescue his brother who was swept away by the sea. Kaulu never gives up and eventually rescues his brother. Students can make text-to-self connections by writing and drawing a picture on the prompts provided. I included both perseverance and responsibility printables and lesson plans for this one. 

The kids love this story and get really into the gigantic wave, the enormous shark, and the journey of Kaulu to rescue his brother. You can download the lesson plans here. 

I am starting a new tradition and including the Connections to Literacy guide with every lesson plan. I include questions to ask and connections to make for that specific book. What do you do to incorporate literacy or other academic domains in your counseling lessons?