First Semester School Counseling Lesson Wrap Up: My 1st Semester of school counseling lessons and activities. This post explains what I did in my building before, during, and at the end of the first semester. Keep reading to find out more about each of my lessons and activities!

We just went on Christmas Break… woooohooo! So, I felt like I should do a First Semester School Counseling Lesson Wrap Up Post and talk about some of the things I have done so far in my building. I implemented new ideas and created new lessons, as well as, pulled out some old favorites and altered some whole-school activities. You are in for a treat with this post!

Before School

Looking back on the beginning of the year… I am impressed with how smooth it was! Things are starting to become easier and I am starting to know what to expect. I decided that I wanted to be more organized throughout the year and track my data better. So, after a lot of research and organizing what I needed in my program. I create the Simply Perfect Planner for School Counselors. This has helped me tremendously! Everything I need is in one location!

Setting up my office is another must-do before school starts! Getting the toys and materials in just the right place for kids to use is key. Check out my post about Setting Up Your School Counseling Office!

Once my office was set-up, I needed to organize my lessons! I am a do-ahead, have it ready type of person… so, setting up my counseling lessons in individual files was super important! I started creating my yearly lesson outline so I can start planning my lesson topics. (Check out my post Cheat Sheet for School Counseling Lessons). Then, I labeled file folders with each lesson topic and started putting in resources for my lessons. This helped because all I had to do was pull the file out, make copies if I needed to and teach!

Once that was over… it was time for school to begin!

Once School Started

Below, I am going to summarize what I did in some of my lessons so far!

Who is Your School Counselor? – We talked about what my role is and how I can help them at school. We also talked about the word confidentiality and what it means. I love to use the book Mrs. Joyce Gives the Best High Fives and Who is Your School Counselor because they explain exactly what the kids need to know about my job and how I am here for them!

Growth Mindset – This topic is by far one of my new favorites! I am still diving into the depth of this topic and highly encourage all of you to dive into this as well! Very interesting and the kids enjoyed the lessons we did. I used the Class Dojo videos on Growth Mindset because they explain this deep topic in kid friendly language. Then we did the Can You Find My Growth Mindset Activity… I called them up one at a time to sort the mindsets. I also taught from the MindUp Curriculum – Lesson One. It helps teach the kids different parts of the brain and how they function.

The 7 Habits – We use the seven habits throughout the entire school year. I start by introducing habit one and we work all year learning how to use them. This is our third year implementing this, so each grade (besides Kindergarten) knows them all! Now, we are able to focus and get deeper on the topic to figure out how we do this in our own lives. I used these posters and handouts (A Bundle of Habits) to give to parents, so they can reinforce the habits at home.

Bullying – This is a very serious topic that we address throughout the year. The first thing we did was to participate in Blue Shirt Day! I sent a letter home to parents explaining what this day was all about and asked that each child wear a blue shirt that day to show their support. We watched some PSA’s from StompOutBullying.org to further our discussions. I also incorporate bullying into my conflict resolution lessons and friendship lessons K-4.

Drug Awareness and Prevention – I talk about drug prevention and awareness during the last two weeks in October so that it ties into Red Ribbon Week and Halloween. This year, I used these adorable file folder activities from Savvy School Counselor! They were perfect because it had one for younger students and one for older elementary. I also used my Red Ribbon Week Bundle in my lessons. It has a Drug Awareness Scoot Game, Healthy Vs. Unhealthy Sort, Morning Announcements and Themed Days w/ a Parent Note! This mainly helped me organize my week!

Then… that Thursday, we Walked Out on Drugs! All of the elementary went out to the football field and watched a performance from the HS Band. One of the high school students spoke and explained why she chose to be drug free and how band has helped her. It was so awesome and the kids loved it! Then all the kids came down on the field and walked to take a stand against drugs! Some of them even made cute signs!

College & Career Week – This year’s college and career week was a little different… so I will explain how I did it last year and then how I did it this year.

CCW Last Year

So, last year I worked all summer long contacting area colleges in Missouri. I explained about College and Career week and asked if they would be willing to donate anything for the kids that had their logo on it. I started getting tons of packages in the mail with t-shirts, pens, sunglasses, etc. It was so nice to feel the support from our Missouri colleges! I made a letter to parents explaining College & Career Week and I started decorating a bulletin board with some of the pamphlets, flyers and materials I had collected…. just to start getting the kids excited!

When the week came, I had a kickoff assembly and showed videos of the area colleges. Then we had one college who came and spoke about different academic paths they could take and explained some of the careers. She even played a career dress up game with some students on stage! Ad-or-a-ble!

Once the kickoff was over, we drew names and those students got the items that we collected through the summer from the colleges. We did end up having enough pens to give to each student in the 3rd and 4th grade classes.

Overall, I loved this and I think the kids did too… but it was a ton of work and this year my schedule did not allow that. So…

CCW This Year

This year we did Career Cafe! I used this Career Cafe Packet… and I gave all the 3rd and 4th grade students the career interest survey. Then I grouped them based on the 6 Career Clusters and their top pick. I sent home a letter asking for parent volunteers and I was able to schedule one parent for each of the 6 clusters to come in and talk. I set up the lobby of our Performing Arts Center like a cafe. We had table cloths and flowers… it was too cute! On the morning of their turn at Cafe, the names would be called over the intercom and they would head down to cafe, have a snack and listen to the speaker. This took Monday – Friday and then the next Monday…. Only in the morning for about 30-40 min.

I also set up a google doc for the K-2 teachers to reserve a spot in Career Cafe. I let them find a speaker for their class and be responsible for working out the time to come. It was easier on me and allowed them the freedom to schedule based on what was good for them.

I enjoyed both ways of teaching about College and Careers… it all just depends on the time allowed and how much I can get accomplished!

Tattling – I taught lessons on Tattling with Kindergarten – 2nd Grade and the teachers LOVED it! I feel like this really takes a lot of practicing! So, we did several different sorting activities, taking the time to discuss each one. We sorted between tattling and reporting. Then I read the book, A Bad Case of Tattle Tongue by Julia Cook. Then, I had them sign a Tattle Pledge to take home to their parents! 🙂

Time Management – With 3rd and 4th Grade I worked on Executive Functions and specifically focused on Time Management. We do the 7 Habits, so I have already taught Habit Three: Put First Things First…. But I needed to go a little deeper.  We talked about how to manage our time and prioritize. We practiced guessing how long something would take and then had a student demonstrate it for us to see if we were close.

Giving Tree – During the month of December, we also have a Giving Tree. We decorate our Christmas Tree and we allow students to bring in food items until the last day until break. They place the food under the tree. Then we take all the food donated to our local food pantry to help families in our community.

Sponsoring Christmas Families – We get lots of generous people who want to help our kids in need. I am on a mission to find an easier way for counselors to handle this! Believe me, when I find out… I will let you know! Right now, I start making a list! When a family calls in needing assistance I put them on one list and when a family calls in wanting to help, they go on another list. Then I start matching them up! Next year, I am looking at doing something online to speed up the process.

Well… that is my First Semester School Counseling Lesson Wrap Up! I had a lot of fun incorporating these activities and I truly love getting into the classroom and teaching kids. Let me know what fun things you do! I am always looking for a new activity!