Starting a new school can be intimidating and scary for students. I went to 9 schools by the time I was in 9th grade and I remember the feeling well! I am happy to welcome a guest blogger, Erainna Winnett, to share her clever idea for welcoming students! Erainna was a classroom teacher for 15 years before becoming a school counselor. She saw a need for newer resources in the field and self-published her first book Mrs. Joyce Gives the Best High Fives . Find out how to win a free copy at the end of this post! 

When new students arrive on our campus, I always go to their classrooms and introduce myself. I generally pull them into the hallway, tell them who I am, explain our Kindness Climate (we are part of Rachel’s Challenge), and walk them to our banner where they sign agreeing to show kindness and compassion daily. I also give them a pencil and walk them back to class leaving them with a high-five. To continue our relationship building, I send them a Welcome to Our School postcard. Students rarely, if ever, receive mail. When their parents hand them something addressed specifically to them, I believe it’s meaningful and memorable. 

Order inexpensive welcome postcards online or print at school using heavy cardstock. The first year I worked with our registrar and hand wrote a welcome message to each child the day they enrolled. This ensured they would receive the postcard the next day or the day after that. At first, about a third of my postcards would be returned undeliverable. After
talking with the post office, I discovered that most apartment buildings will only accept mail with the leaser's name. Remember, I want this to be special to the child and this particular piece of mail is FOR THEM. So, I began writing the child’s name, then c/o the parent’s name. This alleviated the problem. I’ve had several parents come into the office to thank me for just a unique greeting.

Our principal LOVED the idea but wanted to tweak it a little. She wanted to have our fourth graders (the seniors on our campus) write the welcome message. We had a contest where all fourth graders wrote a two to three sentence welcome. Next, we selected three winners and those are the messages new students receive in the mail.

One year, we were on a little stricter budget, so I addressed the postcard to the student and the teacher’s classroom name and number and delivered them when I went to introduce myself to the new student. Ensuring a successful transition for new students I think receiving this Welcome to Our School postcard is unique and lets children know they truly are welcome to THEIR new school and they’ve got a friend in the school counselor.

Thanks Erainna! What a great idea for welcoming new students with a personal touch! If you would like to win one of five copies of Erainna's book Mrs. Joyce Gives the Best High Fives, sign up for the Counselor Up VIP List! Five of our superstar VIPs will win a copy of the book on Friday, August 11 at 4:00pm, sign up before then! It's that easy - no rafflecopter, no form, just VIP treatment - and I promise to never spam you! If you'd like an editable Welcome to Our School template, I got your back too! UPDATE: This giveaway has now ended. You can check to see if you were a winner on Instagram and Facebook! 

Picture me doing the happy dance over here. I am so excited to share my Counselor Planner with you! Make sure to read to the end of the post for a free download!

What's Included:

• This Planner belongs to... page
• Color coded calendar at a glance
• Program Goals Page
• 6 curriculum pages
• 2 Group Plan pages 
• Weekly Schedule and To Do list Pages July 2017-June 2018
• 6 Individual Counseling Log pages
• Lined Notes Pages
• Unlined Notes Pages
• Mandala Quote Pages for Coloring
• Printing Instructions 

Note: This product (and post) have been updated for the 2017-18 school year. The pages are the same but reflect the new dates!

Plan out your year long program goals on one page at the front of your planner to keep you accountable all year long! 

Include your curriculum plan in your planner so that you know which lessons are coming next. There are 6 pages for a total of 66 lessons. There is plenty of room to write notes if you write on the small side. I included a few reminders in my plan. Interested in any of these lessons? Check out my K-2 Curriculum Plan and 3-5 Curriculum Plan. 

I like to run a lot of groups. That's great but sometimes I get confused on who meets when and what class the kids are in. I used to make boxes like these using markers on white paper. For the planner, I've classed it up a bit and given you a spot to write who, what, where, when for all your groups!

Here comes the calendar! Each week includes a two page spread. The appointment page is on the left and the to-do list page on the right. All pages are dated by week and include a weekend box at the bottom. 

Depending on the meeting, I like notes pages with lines or blank so I can sketch it out. I've included both types of pages! 

The individual counseling log is super easy to keep up with. Just write the student's name, their teacher and grade, and the initial time you saw them. After that, simply place a tally next to their name so that you can track your total sessions. Saves paper and the time consuming counting. 

The entire planner has lots of doodling and art areas including mandala coloring pages with quotes. Helps when you're sitting in those super long staff meetings!

I've also included the color "codable" year at a glance calendar. Color the circles to correspond to workdays, vacations, early releases, etc. Click on the photo below to download the freebie!

Go ahead and purchase the planner today so that you can start off the year organized!

Do you use hall passes at your school? We have tried a million different ideas over the years but I find that hall passes in elementary school tend to fizzle as the year progresses. Let's not even talk about passes that get taken to the bathroom. Ew. No matter what, you always have a few friends that need a note to let their teacher know exactly when they left your room. Some people are wonderers, what can we say??

One of my lovely readers suggested the idea to me to make a cute pass. I've always used post-it notes but love this idea. Something fun to keep on hand to add a little brightness to your day. Download the Back to Class Pass right here and view it below.

Love you, mean it. ​Mwah. 

I definitely owe you guys a "real" blogpost with actual information you can use. I want to share everything that I learned at ASCA, talk about Back to School, and sigh with relief that our ASCA presentation is complete. So what gives? I've been working on an awesome ebook full of 22 counselor-authors on TPT sharing the best of the best. Each and every single page has a freebie. 

I was charged with making this book and, I'm not going to lie, it's been a ton of work. Kind of like when you and your counselor colleagues roll up your sleeves and work hard on something - you feel proud to share the final result. I can't wait to go check out all the amazing freebies and add products to my wishlist for the next TPT sale. In the meantime, here's my page. Check out the whole book on TPT and don't forget to follow some new stores. 

I'm happy to have another guest blogger today! Rachel Haltiwanger is an elementary ESL teacher in middle Tennessee, where she advocates for and works with English learners and refugees. She is passionate about helping English learners achieve their full potential. She blogs over at thecozylearningcottage.blogspot.com, where she shares tips and ideas for working with ESL students. You can also find her on twitter, pinterest, facebook, and teachers pay teachers. Rachel is sharing tips for supporting refugee students in your schools. ​

The refugee crisis has been in the news continually for months. As more and more people come fleeing violence, terror, and persecution, schools are encountering populations they have never worked with before. On my first day of teaching, fresh out of college, energetic, and starry-eyed, I walked into my room of second grade English learners only to discover that the majority of my students had relocated to the USA as refugees.
In some sense, refugee students are just like every other student in your school. They require high expectations, growth mindset, manageable goals, and quality and caring instruction but refugee students have some unique needs as well. School counselors are in a prime position to not only reach the needs of these children but to train and prepare their teachers and other staff at the school on how to work with these students effectively. Specifically, there are five areas in which refugee students may have different needs than their American-born peers:

The amount that US parents are expected to be involved in their child’s schooling is uncommon in many other cultures. As a result it may be seem that refugee parents are uninvolved, simply because they are used to a different level of parental involvement in school. Reach out to families early on, ideally with the aid of a translator/family liaison who can introduce parents to school policies and procedures, explain basic communication between school and home, and demonstrate how school "works" in your building. Parents have every right to understand what is happening at school and be supported in helping their children succeed. With their involvement and support students have a significant leg up in achieving their goals.

​By nature of their refugee status, many refugees have very few possessions and may have come from a significantly different climate than where they are now living. Students need appropriate jackets and shoes in the winter and may even need blankets for their homes. Keep an eye out for students who are wearing the same clothes every day or clothes that don’t fit, or perhaps lack basic school supplies. Students who are cold, hungry, tired, and dirty won’t be able to focus on their studies until their basic needs are met, so work on a way to provide for physical needs of these students (and their families) as well.

Refugee children have known fear and heartbreak in ways that their American teachers and friends may never know, and they have emotional scars as a result. Some refugees develop post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, from the trauma they have witnessed and experienced. I have created a “red flag” cheat sheet to check for signs and symptoms of excessive anxiety in school aged children. All refugee children will likely need some time to adjust and feel comfortable in school, and that is normal. School counselors can support school staff to identify red flags that indicate the child may need some more significant emotional and psychological help to process what they have lived through. Keep an eye out for these red flags in refugee children and share this document with their classroom teachers and others who work closely with them to be looking for as well. You can download the cheat sheet here.

​In addition to being unfamiliar with school culture, refugee students may not be familiar with other unspoken cultural norms. For example, in some cultures it is customary to stand much closer to another person while talking than it is in the US, and this may make some other students (and teachers) uncomfortable. In many other cultures, it is customary to point at things with your middle finger rather than your pointer finger. Rather than making fun of or humiliating the student, let them know that their way of doing things is good, but that we also do it differently here. Get to know students and learn as much about their culture as you can before assuming rudeness or defiance in the way they are behaving. In the same way, we can increase our cultural sensitivity by learning more about the child's culture and background.

 ​One of the best ways to welcome any new student into a class community is to let them share about things that are important to them and where they came from- the same is true for refugee students. Invite them to bring in any photos they might have or traditional clothing or toys. Let them teach the class how to say “Hello” in their language. Try some of the foods they may bring in for snack and lunch, and let the class ask them (appropriate, respectful) questions about where they came from and how things are different. Refugee children may being to consider their home culture and language as bad or “less than” American culture, which can pose problems in their homes and families as they grow. Celebrate the differences and diversity in your classroom and school.

​At the end of the day, refugee students are still students. They need to learn how to relate well to their peers, grow in knowledge and understanding, become confident in themselves as learners and as humans, and develop into their best and healthiest selves. There may be a few areas where they need extra support because of their history, but they are not too difficult or beyond helping. With the right help and direction, you will be amazed by how quickly they become thriving members of your classroom community.

Thanks so much Rachel! What a great reminder of the needs of refugee students as they enter our schools. If you haven't checked out Rachel's website The Cozy Learning Cottages, please do! You may have seen my pinterest feed lighting up with her many wonderful resources and I absolutely love the reason for her blog's name!