Next year has to be better right? Right? I'm ready to get started in planning so I can focus on the positive. I need all the help I can get right now. 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 2021-June 2022
• 6 Individual Counseling Log pages
• Lined Notes Pages
• Unlined Notes Pages
• Quote Pages for Coloring
• Printing Instructions 

Note: This product (and post) have been updated for the 2020-21 school year. This year, I've hole punched in a note book, I've also printed printed in a spiral notebook before as well. It's super easy to upload on a website like Staples or Office Depot and have it printed. It usually costs my about $15 depending on what options I use and coupons I find. I've included printing instructions in the materials as well. Best of all, you upload one document and it does it all for you!

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! If you'd like, I've also created monthly pages (free) and daily pages ($2). 

Resolving conflicts with others may be life's greatest social emotional skill. Avoiding conflict, seeking conflict, mishandling conflict is tough for many an adult (raises hand). It's especially hard for kids who are also mastering a long list of other social emotional skills like self-regulation, managing strong feelings, and problem solving. Because of this, I've avoided peer mediation. Also, because I'm lazy because here's the thing - peer mediation is hard. It's not easier than handling it yourself. But it is valuable. It empowers your mediators as leaders but it also empowers the students resolving conflict to seek help from peers and to handle this tough thing.

As always, I've tried to include everything you need here to get you started. If you're interested in purchasing the materials ready made, you can find them on my TpT store all nicely organized for you.

Always start with core! We want our peer mediators to be wonderful conflict resolution leaders but that will work best if all students have the skills. In this series, we'll teach 2 classroom lessons on handling emotions and resolving conflict. 

Lesson 1

• Intro feelings - feelings can be big or small. Give students a list of feelings and ask them to rank in order of intensity. For example: bummed, disappointed, mad, angry, furious
• Domino Effect - show a cool video of dominos. Explain the concept of "domino effect" - it can seem inevitable, but remove one domino and the whole thing stops. This can happen with emotions too! 
• Cause and Effect - we each have actions that are related to emotions. For example, you are angry, you might shout; you are sad, you might cry, you are annoyed, you might roll your eyes. Some actions are healthy and some are unhealthy. We might need to use strategies to stop the dominos when we have unhealthy actions related to behavior. 
• Brainstorm Strategies - ask students to write strategies they use for managing emotions. Collect all post-its. Place posters around the room with different emotions and redistribute (appropriate) post-its to groups of students. Ask them to connect strategies to the feelings that would be the best fit. For example, deep breaths for angry or talk it out for nervous. 
• Role Play - if you have time, consider a role play to practice different strategies!

Let the fun begin! When peer mediators are selected, they participate in 3 small group lessons to practice their mediation skills and learn what it means to be a peer mediator. The entire peer mediation process will vary greatly from school to school based on logistics, so I've tried to include some ideas to help you think it through. 

Peer Mediation Practice 1
The first practice lesson includes an inclusion activity and introductions. At this time, we establish norms and really work on working as a team. We spend time thinking about the importance of reputation of peer mediators:

• What does reputation mean?
• Why is reputation important?
• What characteristics make a good mediator?
• What does confidentiality mean?
• Is condifentiality important for peer mediators? Why?

As a culminating activity, we make posters advertising peer mediation to hang when we're ready to start accepting "clients."

Peer Mediation Practice 2
Time to practice! Using the steps of conflict resolution from Lesson 2, we practice peer mediation in groups of three. One person is the role play peer mediator and two people play participants. Each group will have the same scenario for each of three rounds. I created "Let's Resolve our Conflict" table tents to support the process. Following each round, prompt students to give feedback on the role play with sentence starters:

• It was really helpful when you __________________.
• I was confused when __________________.
• An idea to make our session even better is ________________.

In scenario 3, I tried to create a tough situation where the peer mediator may need to seek help from an adult. Some groups won't reach that conclusion but most of the time, at least one group will need help. This is a reason to celebrate! They will need help sometimes and that's OK. 

Peer Mediation Practice 3
We're ready for nuts and bolts. For practice 3, we go over the process and expectation for peer mediation. The process for peer mediation is very unique to your setting. Here are some prompts to consider when introducing process to your students:

• How will students self-refer to peer mediation?
• Can staff members refer students to peer mediation? can administrators choose peer mediation as a result of a discipline referral if both students agree to it?
• When will peer mediation take place?
• How will you document which students participate and the outcome of their participation?
• How long will each peer mediation last?
• What is the schedule for peer mediators? Will multiple sessions occur at once or will mediators rotate through one at a time?
• Do you plan to use conflict resolution notes (taken by mediators during the session), agreement cards (participants write their agreement as a reminder), post-resolution surveys?

​Finally, we spend some more time practicing with mediators thinking up their own scenarios. If you feel like your mediators aren't ready, add more practice sessions until they are!

I think it's important to consider the goal of peer mediation when reflecting on its success. For a long time, I thought it was supposed to be a time saver for me - that students working with other students would help me to get more conflicts resolved with less time. Yeah, that is definitely not the case. Most of the time, it's the same amount of work but, this time, students are getting more out of it because the goal is really learning to resolve conflicts independently. It's actually not about me, go figure. 

As always, I've tried to include everything you need here to get you started. If you're interested in purchasing the materials ready made, you can find them on my TpT store all nicely organized for you.

Have you ever worked with a classroom of kids who can't agree on anything? Students who are constantly arguing or bickering with one another? How about received 20 social skills referral from the same classroom? If so, you may have wondered how to hit the "start over" button on the year and go back to when the students were first getting to know one another. Alas, we don't have a do-over button so it's time to implement a new core social emotional learning plan for the class. Here are some tips:

The more that students feel connected to each other and their teacher, the more likely they are to buy into classroom norms around how they treat each other. Introduce activities that are fun and engaging while increasing the connection between classmates. This could be during academic instruction but also might include some fun icebreaker activities. One of my favorites is to give students some paper and tape and ask them to build the highest tower possible. There are so many skills embedded in this activity! If relationship skills are low, consider mini-lessons on working together before you start. Continue offering the opportunity for fun, group, engagement to keep that feeling of connection going.

In positive communities, citizens work together, contribute, and have a say in how things are run. Give students jobs that matter so that they know they are contributing, allow students leadership roles, and ask questions about their thoughts and opinions. Think about the best job you've ever had - I bet you felt you were contributing and you had some autonomy. 

You get more of what you focus on. Pay attention to the good things that your students are doing and comment on how that positivity affects the rest of the class. Students will notice that you are paying attention and (most) will recreate the positive behavior that merited your positive attention. Be specific and call out the positive consequences of their behavior. This also models positive behavior for students. Basically, stop trying to tell them to not say mean things and instead build up their capacity to see the good in each other and to feel like they are a part of the classroom!

It's possible that students are in conflict because they lack the skills they need. If you (or the classroom teacher) are noticing a high number of the same types of incidents, create a plan to explicitly teach the skills they need. I call this "responsive core," core instruction given to all students because of an observation of a skill deficit.

​In one classroom I worked with, the students had lost their routines and procedures and it was causing a lot of chaos and disengagement for the class. In response, the teacher and I rearranged the furniture over the weekend and had a pretend "first day of school." The class spent the day learning about processes and procedures again. Amazingly, the loved it and thought it was so fun! In another class I worked with, the students lacked conflict resolution skills. I taught a conflict resolution lesson then created an agreement with the class to follow the conflict resolution steps. It really worked and the kids were able to *more* independently problem solve on their own. 

What are your go to tips for helping classrooms that have gotten off-track socially and emotionally? I want to expand my list!

Today I am so happy to welcome Katie, Julia, and Paige to share a series of career exploration lessons for elementary school. These ladies are grad students in my home state and I am thrilled for them to share their work with you. I love seeing our next generation of school counselors ready to make a difference. Amazing work!

Thank you Katie, Julia, and Paige for sharing your work! Y'all this is 57 pages of lessons, resources, and materials for you. They have done a great job and I know that others will want to use these great tools. I am so impressed with their work and commitment to school counseling. What do you do for career exploration in your school?

I once wanted a job badly. I daydreamed about this job. I couldn't wait to have this job. I went to the interview super confident, too confident, and didn't come prepared enough. In the end, I didn't get the job and learned that I was their 2nd pick. I learned from that experience and I took that learning into my next interview where I did land the job and eventually ended up in the job that I have today. Failure is its own tool that shapes us into who we are. I am super excited to invite Anthony DeThomas today to share the process of writing his book My Friend, Failure. 

Anthony works for an innovation consulting firm called Peer Insight, where he practices empathy-based problem solving every day. Prior to his consulting experience, Anthony honed his writing and storytelling skills as a congressional speechwriter. In his free time, Anthony loves pushing his writing and storytelling to their limits with new book concepts. He lives in Washington, D.C.

The problems counselors, teachers, and administrators face today are thorny. Solution after solution has been handed down from the top, yet the problems remain. If you can relate to this feeling, maybe it’s time to tap into the school counselor and educator superpower we all share: empathy. Empathy-based problem solving processes, also known as  human-centered design or design thinking, are an effective and inclusive way to tackle any problem that has humans at its center.
 
This post will share examples of how empathy-based processes have been used to solve challenges in education, from redesigning the K–12 learning experience for a growing network of schools to creating a new kind of children’s book. It will also provide some tips on how you can start using this approach today.

We’ll start with a story about a Peruvian school system that set out to design the K–12 learning experience for a growing network of schools. The project would leverage empathy to overhaul everything from the curriculum to the teacher training and the school buildings. Their ultimate aim was to figure out how to expand the school system without sacrificing quality and provide international-quality education at an affordable price. What a BIG challenge!
 
Teaming up with world renowned empathizers and designers, the Peruvian school system first learned about other school models around the world that scale well. What’s important to note here is that the team looked at other successful examples for inspiration. You should absolutely do the same as you try to tackle your problem. Another key point is to look outside to see how other smart, empathetic people have solved similar problems. 

Throughout the project, the designers also collaborated with teachers and students to co-design potential solutions. This meant speaking to teachers and students to learn what wasn’t working well in the current school system and what was. By identifying the teachers’ and students’ most painful problems, the designers could focus on creating solutions for well-defined, meaningful problems, not loose assumptions about the problems. This is another important practice: include the users you want to help in the problem identification and solution creation processes. This could be as simple as having a conversation about what’s bugging them and asking them to give you feedback on your ideas of a solution.
 
This project helped create a school system built from the ground up, based on its users’ needs. For this school system, that looks like: project-based learning in small groups with self-directed time and digital learning tools. Teachers can monitor students’ work online and offer personalized guidance. Parents can view their children’s progress online as well. The buildings were also improved to include different learning environments, like media labs, rooftop study areas, cafes, and community spaces. 

Thanks Anthony! What a great way to create a book. How do y'all use empathy and inquiry to make your practices better? I am currently reading Onward: Cultivating Emotional Resilience in Educators and I see this as a theme there too. Isn't it funny how the universe aligns like that?