Counselor Up!
  • Blog
  • About
  • Speaker
  • Author
    • Book Summary
    • Book Discussion Guide
  • Things I Love
  • TPT Store

#flashbackfriday The Girls Group

12/19/2014

 
Picture
Oops where did #tbt go? I wanted to share this Girls Group post from the old blog. I just wrapped this group and am hoping to gather permission from parents to post the awesome video my girls made about relational aggression after finishing the book. In the meantime, here's what we did in our book club:

Oh, girl drama. We've lived it and now sometimes we live surrounded by it. If you're a school counselor, you spend at least a portion of every day dealing with girl drama. This is such a difficult topic to manage. Some days, I can remember that this is preparing our young girls for all the relationships that they will have as adolescents and adults. Other days, I just want to scream "Get over it! You'll be friends tomorrow!" Just kidding. Sort of. 

While I have certainly implemented many mediation and conflict resolution interventions, I was looking for something that would teach new relationship skills and allow for real change. Enter the book club! My good friend, Angela Poovey, over at Life on the Fly, really introduced me to the book club concept and I love it. 
I used the book The Girls by Amy Goldman Koss. In this group, we read a portion of the book and discuss the implications of the selection. We begin each lesson with a youtube video that relates to what we read previously. I put all the videos on a playlist here. 

To begin, I assigned each girl in the group a character. They each received a piece of paper with the character's name on top and two columns: What they think, What others think. Here they wrote the impressions their character had about the other girls and what the other girls thought about their character. It was really great to see each student grab their pen and add to their paper while I was reading. I think that the character pages helped the girls in the group to really connect to the characters and relate to the story. It also kept them paying attention!


To end the group, we used a technique that I picked up doing the Bullying Specialist professional development through ASCA. In this technique, I empowered each of the girls to use resources to research ways to handle a fictitious problem. In my district, we use google docs. I created a google doc with different bullying resources and assigned one to each student. Outside of group, they researched their resource and input ideas for how to handle our fictitious problem. We then discussed their resources and ideas in the group. 

You can check out all the lesson plans below (may not be visible on mobile). I hope that you find it helpful!

PS - Teachers LOVE book clubs because they incorporate reading skills and using resources to research a problem is so Common Core :) Have fun!

Picture
Rebecca link
1/7/2015 08:45:01 am

This is fantastic. Thanks so much for sharing!

Rebecca Atkins link
1/7/2015 10:29:16 pm

Thanks so much! We really enjoy these groups!

Tracie
4/27/2015 10:25:49 pm

What age do you think this is appropriate for? I teach 3rd grade and my girls are constantly bickering and crying about the silliest things.

Rebecca Atkins link
4/27/2015 11:29:39 pm

Hi Tracie! The book is a grade level equivalent of 5.5- I would imagine it might be a little hard for 3rd graders even if you read it out loud. I wonder if you could do some Girl Power activities with conflict resolution? I have a Girls Rock group in my TPT store: https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Girls-Rock-Confidence-Group-1784568

Good luck!

Ashley
8/19/2015 04:27:47 am

Love this! When I click on the lesson plans it says its no longer available, Anyway I can get those from you?

Rebecca Atkins
8/21/2015 05:11:54 am

Hi Ashley, links are updated. Thanks for letting me know!

Annie
11/19/2015 11:59:16 am

Could you check the links again? They are not working for me.

Rebecca Atkins
11/20/2015 12:39:35 pm

Hi Annie- sorry about that - I have now embedded the lesson plans in the post!


Comments are closed.
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture

    Rebecca Atkins

    Welcome to my blog where I talk about all things school counselor and encourage others to Counselor Up!

    Picture

     Subscribe in a reader

    This website uses marketing and tracking technologies. Opting out of this will opt you out of all cookies, except for those needed to run the website. Note that some products may not work as well without tracking cookies.

    Opt Out of Cookies
    K-2 Curriculum Plan from www.counselorup.com
    3-5 Curriculum Plan from www.counselorup.com
    Picture
    Links may be affiliate links. If you link and purchase, I may receive compensation at no additional cost to you. Thanks for your support of Counselor Up.

    Categories

    All
    ASCA National Model
    Behavior
    Counseling Career
    Equity
    Freebies
    Groups
    IMO
    Individual Counseling
    Just A Little Thing
    Lessons
    Office
    Organization
    Parent Book Club
    Parent Communication
    Professional Development
    #tbt
    Technology

    Archives

    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    June 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014