More Book Club Book Recommendations

If I haven't mentioned it several times before, book clubs are my favorite school counselor led group. I like the use of bibliotherapy to work with each group (books are so versatile to reach so many types of groups).  Each year I look forward to adding more books to my book club collection.  Here are some more to consider if you're looking for new books:

Brown Girl Dreaming, author: Jacqueline Woodson- This is an autobiography, written in poetry form (the title of the book says it all).

Jeremy Fink and the Meaning of Life, author: Wendy Mass- Book with a mystery that I think students will find very interesting.  This book also deals with being in a single parent home, having a deceased parent and friendship.

All of the Above, author: Shelley Pearsall- My students and I both LOVED this book!  A great book about overcoming obstacles to the fullest.

The Fourteenth Goldfish, author: Jennifer Holm- A funny sci-fi book that (humorously) discusses family dynamics, friendship and coming of age.

The Hundred Dresses, author: Eleanor Estes- This book is on many counselor book lists.  Deals with bullying and acceptance of others.

What other books have you read that you think will be a great addition to a counselor led book club?  Please share below.



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#NSCW15 Thursday Giveaway

#NSCW15 Thursday Giveaway is a copy of What Shoes Will You Wear book by the fabulous Julia Cook.  Raise your hand if you have a Julia Cook book in your counselor library?  Well here' s a way to add another to your collection.  Enter below to win a copy of What Shoes Will You Wear  which is great book to use with students to explore careers options.  I ALWAYS find myself looking for resources and ways to expose younger students to careers.  This is going to be an excellent resource to add to my counselor career resources.


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#NSCW15 Wednesday Giveaway

#NSCW15 Wednesday Giveaway is a copy of The Body Image Workbook for Teens: Activities to Help Girls Develop a Healthy Body Image in an Image Obsessed World (An Instant Help Book for Teens) by Julia V.Taylor.   Raise your hand if you own the super helpful G.I.R.L.S. book (I do, love them).  Well here's a way to add another book to your counselor library.  Enter below to win a copy of The Body Image Workbook for Teens, which is great book to use with students & parents. This is going to be an excellent resource to add to my counselor career resources.


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#NSCW15 Tuesday Giveaway

#NSCW15 Tuesday Giveaway is a copy of The Anti-Test Anxiety Society book by the fabulous Julia Cook.  Raise your hand if you have a Julia Cook book in your counselor library?  Well here' s a way to add another to your collection.  Enter below to win a copy of The Anti-Test Anxiety Society, which is great book to use with students as testing season approaches.  I ALWAYS find myself looking for resources and ways to calm testing nerves with students and parents.  This is going to be an excellent resource to have on working with testing worries.

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Storyline Online...Great (Free) Counselor Find

I LOVE reading and enjoy reading to my students during class visits, but there have been a few cases where reading aloud hasn't worked so well in my favor.  These instances include losing my voice, not feeling my best or just not feeling reading the same story for the 10th time in a week.  I've found an amazing alternative solution...Storyline Online!  Which is an online book website where The Screen Actors Guild Foundation records well-known actors reading children’s books and makes graphically dynamic videos so that children around the world can be read to with just the click of a Storyline Online video book image. I also think that this is awesome because we'll be able to have more discussion and lesson activity time during our class visits and there's a good chance that I wouldn't have nearly as many interruptions during story time (we all have a class or two that provides lots of "commentary" .

I have a strong feeling that this will be used quite a bit in my class visits and small groups.  Thank you Storyline Online, this website is a school counselor's dream come true!

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Even More Counselor Lead Book Club Suggestions

I've received several questions about running a school counselor led book club and I love that so many of you are interested in starting a book club(s) at your school.  I'd like to share a few more tips and answers to common questions that I've gotten:

Tips:
-Since we meet for book club during lunch, I pack a picnic basket with my book club "necessities" which include, hand sanitizer, paper towels, wipes, extra utensils and dry erase markers.  This year the library is being used during lunch so we're having book club in a classroom.   I try to cover all my bases with my students (things that always seem to be dropped and forgotten) and so that we don't leave a mess for the very nice teachers that let us to meet in their rooms.

Book Club Basket

-After we finish each book, someone from the group volunteers to bring in a snack (snack is up to the students) and we have a book club celebration in Dec and in April after our last book.  The students love the celebrations.  Our celebrations are like a pot luck where everyone brings in something (I usually assign items to bring and I order pizza). 

-Take a picture of the group and print copies of the pictures for each student in book club to give at the end of the year. 

 On a side note:
-This year I mixed up the way I do book clubs a little. This year my 4th grade book club is high level readers and I will say that the conversations and discussions about our books are quite interesting.  With my 5th graders, I have all girls in the group this time around and that too has been an interesting change from before (in a good way).

-Here are a few more book suggestions for your counselor led book clubs:

Out of My Mind by Sharon M. Draper

Holes by Louis Sacher

There's A Boy in the Girls Bathroom by Louis Sacher

The Homework Machine by Dan Gutman

The Strange Case of Origami Yoda by Tom Angelberger

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Spoonful of Sweetness Review and Giveaway

Raise your hand if you own any book(s) written by the fabulous Maria Dismondy (I'm raising mine)?  In case you're wondering Maria wrote Spaghetti in a A Hot Dog Bun, The Juice Box Bully, The Potato Chip Champ and Pink Tiara Cookies for Three.  I love how all her books give children tools to empower themselves to be who they are and model great character traits (perfect for school counselor class lessons).  Now Maria has a new book out....Spoonful of Sweetness which I had the opportunity to read and want to share with you how it can be used at your school

This book is geared towards birth-Kindergarten aged children.  So I used this book with my Pre-K students at my school.  What I like about it is that it covers character traits and brings up good talking points to discuss with the students.  I'll also add that when sharing the book with the class, I used the document camera to display on the Smartboard (the book is made for little hands, which I don't have and it was easier for everyone to see the pictures). 

After each page, I shared examples of how to show the character traits (kindness, friendship, responsibility, empathy, respect & courage).  I then asked the students did they show any of those traits at school or at home (of course they all nod yes).  Some students even wanted to share how they showed those traits (I just love hearing those stories)!  I loved this book because it allowed me to expose my youngest students to character education (it's never too early). 

I have great news to share... one lucky school counselor will receive an autographed copy of the book!  To enter for a copy of the book leave a comment below, like my Facebook page and follow me @jyjcounselor at Twitter.  Enter by midnight Friday, January 18th.  Good luck!




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Great Way to Get Books for Your Counselor Library

Books, books, books!!!  How many times have you gone to a book store and find yourself wondering in the children's/young adult section to find books to use for work?  I certainly have.   I use books for many things: classroom lessons, resources for parents & students, my book clubs and our character ed book bucks cart.  I love the joy that reading brings and encourage students to read regularly to take on the joy of reading.

Copy of character book bucks. 

I've talked about our character ed book bucks reward incentive program previously, but I'll mention it again.  When students are showing good character by showing one or more of the character education traits (respect, responsibility, good judgement, perseverance, kindness, integrity& self discipline ) they may be rewarded with a character ed book buck from a teacher, staff member or school safety patrol member.  On Friday's students may trade in book bucks for a book, 5 book bucks = 1 book, 10 book bucks = 2 books and so on.  Our book supply had gotten quite thin and were mainly younger children's books.  So our main "customers" were Kindergarten - 2nd grade.   

Book bucks cart before new books were added...I know kind of thin

Every week students would ask "do you have any chapter books?" and I'd have to say "well there are a few, but they get gone quickly".  So here's where the awesome opportunity comes up.....our county library has an annual book sale, however before the books go on sale to the public there's a special day where educators can come and get as many books as they want (they even provide the boxes).   I feel like I had the ultimate opportunity of a lifetime on getting books for an awesome price....free (my favorite price)!  The literacy teacher and myself went with a plan....to get as many chapter and children's books for the character ed book bucks cart at our school. 

We arrived at the library sale bright and early, dressed in our comfy clothes, tennis shoes with a hand truck in tow ready to book shop.  There were rows and rows of tables full of books.  Thank goodness they were separated into groups (Children's, Young Adults, Adult Fiction, etc.) so of course we headed right to the children's section, which by the way everyone else was in too.   Since we were there fairly early, we had plenty of time to look through the tables of books.  At times I will admit it was a bit overwhelming with all the books but I after a while I got in a rhythm of choosing chapter books from popular children's series (Harry Potter, Magic Tree House, etc).  I also realized that a lot of our students (both male & female) are really into science fiction so I began choosing books based on book cover appearance that looked like they might be science fiction.  Any book with a dragon, ghost, knight or warrior I picked up and put in the box!   As stated before before our goal was to get chapter books but if we saw books to go in our professional libraries we wouldn't pass on them either.  So after 2 and a half hours and 28 boxes of books later we felt quite successful in our task of book shopping.  Once we arrived at school, we sorted the books  and I "updated" the book bucks cart. We now have a side of the cart for young children's beginner books and a side for chapter books.

This is only half of the book sale area, see why I was a little overwhelmed!

These educators are on a book mission.

Books we collected...28 boxes worth

 I'll use these books all year to refill the cart as needed (parents also donate books throughout the year).  I highly encourage you to make use of your local library book sale (check with your library about it).  As you can see, this was so like hitting the jackpot!  On book buck day, we had an astounding number of students coming to get their "new" chapter books (I guess the news traveled fast).  I know that I heard "wow" at least 10 times as students searched for their books.  After finding "the perfect book" the students looked like they had hit the jackpot.  Their faces told it all, I even saw a few reading their books during carpool.  Seeing their excitement shows me that all of us hit the jackpot!

Children's Beginner Books Side

Chapter Books!

Searching for the perfect chapter book!  This is before the large crowd came.
 

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Celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month

If you didn't already know but we're in the midst of Hispanic Heritage Month (Sept 15-Oct 15) and by the way if you wondering what events happen each month of the year click here for the National Educational and Health Awareness dates for 2013-2014.  My school is a magnet Spanish immersion school so the students are very knowledgeable about Spanish language and culture.  Here are a few things I did to celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month:

-Made a bulletin board of famous Hispanics (the banner is from Vistaprint) for display on the main hall (right outside my office).  I typed the names in Word and printed a picture of each person (using Google images) also one of the Spanish teachers let me borrow her poster set of famous Hispanics which are also mixed in with the pictures that I printed (these can be found at any teacher supply store).

Bulletin Board

-Made Daily Hispanic Heritage Month Facts to be shown on our school's TV news show.  The facts are also shown during the day in the daily announcements.  I used PowerPoint to create this.

Fact shown on our school news.

-Made a book display showcasing books written by Hispanic authors or had a character that was Hispanic (the librarian helped me with this, she's awesome).

Each of these things was super easy to do and made a positive impact on our month long celebration.
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More Counselor Led Book Club Suggestions

Thank you to the many wonderful counselors who gave suggestions on more books that would be great to have for your counselor led book club. From your suggestions, I was able to order several sets for my 4th & 5th grade book clubs (I hope to order the rest in the next couple of months).   I am able to purchase sets of 12 books for my book club through a grant through my school's PTA (they are wonderful).  Here are some more book suggestions:

-Wonder (deals with a child having a disability) *I ordered this book

-Mockingbird (deals with a student having Aspergers)

-There's a Boy in the Girls Bathroom (deals with social skills/behavior) *I ordered this book



-Gifted Hands (deals with achievement despite difficult circumstances, poverty, broken home)

-The Strange Case of Origami Yoda (deals with self discovery)



-The Girls (deals with cliques) *I ordered this book

-Eagle Song (deals with family changes, diversity)

-Locomotion (deals with broken family, foster care) *I ordered this book

-Peace Locomotion (Part II of Locomotion, deals with broken family, foster care) *I ordered this book

-On My Honor (deals with following rules, loss of a friend) *I ordered this book



-Izzy's Place (deals with family changes)

-The One and Only Ivan (deals with friendship)

Do you have any more books to add to the list?  I'd love to hear them.

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Store Your Books With Style!

It's no secret that a "tool" in our counselor tool belt is books.  I absolutely love reading, reading to classes and just books in general.  In some previous posts, I've shared my love for books and have taken several measures to try to keep my counselor books somewhat organized.

After using my book crawler app to scan in my books and assigning them to a category (i.e. bullying, character ed, friendship, etc) I wanted to separately categorize the books.  Well wouldn't luck have it, the librarian at my school was doing some cleaning and had these book/folder holders on the staff, free giveaway table (wish I'd gotten there earlier to get more).

Free book holders!

Who knew that a little bit of scrapbook paper and adhesive spray could spruce up these book holders:

Spray adhesive on, let dry for 30-45 seconds before putting on scrapbook paper.

Spray adhesive, or any type of glue will work.

Add scrapbook paper and trim off the edges.  I used the leftover scraps to glue to the front.

Recovered book holders

I made some labels to put on the front of each box to identify/categorize the books.  I printed them on Post-It mailing labels (3 1/3 " X  4", 6 labels per sheet).

Labels, I found these on clearance ($6, I think) at Office Depot

Printed labels

If you'd like a printable copy of the labels (with the text above) click here.

Blank labels printable

If you'd like the blank labels printable with just the borders (where you can write what you choose on the labels) click here.

Here's the finished product:

I also used the labels to add to storage baskets (some with more books) in my cabinet.

Labels on storage bins (Target $6.99)

Total cost for the project:  $0, the book holders were free and I had all the other supplies already.  As I've said time and time again, free is my favorite price!  This was a super easy fix to add a little flare to the way my counselor books are stored.  I really wish that I had gotten more book holders because I have many more book categories (I know to act fast for next time)!

How do you keep your counselor books organized?

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