We Went to College & So Can YOU Display

This year at my school, we have a bulletin board dedicated to fun facts about our school staff family.  The bulletin board is changed every 2 months and we have a "theme" each time around.  This time it was my turn, so I suggested a college themed board.  Here's what I did:

-I cut out the words "We Went to College & So Can YOU!" using my Cameo Silhouette Paper cutter  (at the suggestion of blogger bestie Danielle from The School Counselor Blog I got a grant from my school's PTA to get one, they are absolutely awesome for creating printables).  I used the font Simplicity for this cut out.  I glued the letters onto paper for backing for the bulletin board. 

Letters made using Cameo Silhouette

-Each staff member emailed a picture of themselves in either their college t-shirt, hat, holding a sign, or anything that represented the college/university that they attended.  I also offered to take a picture of staff members in their shirts for the bulletin board (which worked out great). 

-To enhance the pictures and add the staff's name and university, I used the photo editing site Picmonkey.  I used the font "Freshman" and added a border of the school's colors for each picture (for the schools I didn't know their colors, I used Google to find out).

Here's me, I actually took this pic on the campus of my university,  I was super excited to go back to campus!

The cool thing is that our staff had some very creative pictures representing their university...

I LOVE this pic!

Here's the finished product.

What a great way to showcase your "college & career" standards...school wide. 




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Share Your "Youth" With Your Students

Most of us have our name on our door in our counselor offices (thanks for sharing your #scoffice pics by the way, it was so cool to see all the creative counselor spaces).  At my school in the past couple of years, we've had an acrostic poem with each staff members name and picture printed by our PTA (we write our own poem).

Acrostic poem printed from by my school's PTA (if you notice, I had to cover up the "G" word and put in "school")

This year we did something a little different, based on a back to school display, that the grocery store Trader Joe's had up (TJ's is one of my FAVORITES).  The front windows of the store had school pictures of all their employees as children.  I actually could match quite a few them up (yes, I go in there that often).

Display at TJ's

So we did something a little similar at my school.   Each staff member created a sign outside their door with a picture of them as a child and their favorite childhood book.  We had creative freedom of how we wanted to decorate/design our "signs".  It has been an absolute hit!  Everyone has been complimenting each other on "how cute you look as a child" or "I loved that book too as a child".

Here's my sign (sorry for the glare).  I used scrapbook & construction paper for my sign. Notice there's no "G" word!

This also shows a little different (fun & real) side of us to parents and especially our students (somehow they don't realize that at one point we were children too).  I also like that this can be adapted for any school level (elementary, middle or high) and other choices other than a favorite book could include: favorite quote, favorite thing about being at your school or cool fact about them. 

Do you have common name signs for staff at your school?

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Daily Reminders Magnet Board

No matter how many calendars or to do lists I keep, I do from time to time forget things (it's seems a little more often these days, but I digress).  A former counselor intern gave me this cute and cool magnetic message board.  At first I thought great I can put little notes, reminders and such on it.  That plan lasted about let's see....2 days!  I had a small board and a large amount of reminders & notes.  I got this great idea to make this reminder board for each day of the week.  I used something similar when I was teacher a few years back.  So this is what I did:

Magnetic Board

I typed a quick reminders template using Word for Mac (it took probably 10 minutes to type this).  I just typed the usual things that I have daily such as: classroom visits, students lunches, meetings, people I may need to call & other notes.  I typed the title "Monday's Reminders"once and changed the day of the week after printing.  I printed each day of the week on different color cardstock paper and laminated it.

Daily Reminder

The whole week of reminders

After trimming the laminating film from each day of the week I then glued some magnets I got in a race packet from our 5K several months ago (I also got extra magnets to use for future projects, hey they were free) on the back of each day of the week reminder sheet. By the way 2 magnets (shown below) came with the board, but having magnets on each day works great for me.

Free magnets, my favorite price!

Magnets that came w/ the board

Using glue gun to put on magnet

I write what I'm supposed to do each day with a dry erase marker (it's better to get a smaller tip dry erase pen, the ones used for a large whiteboard are hard for me to write with).  I can then wipe clean & reuse the same daily sheet...forever!  I use my Google calendar (agenda view) and transfer it to my daily reminders sheets.  I usually write my reminders for the following week on Friday's and it has worked great for me! 

Dry Erase Markers $4.99 for pack of 4

The finished product is below.

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Ease Testing Worries for Students & Staff

It's everyone's "favorite" time of year...state testing!  Well not really, but it does bring us one step closer to the end of the school year and summer break.  State testing can cause stress, worries and anxiety for BOTH students and staff.  So I decided to do a little something to pump up everyone for state testing.  To see how we did staff pick me ups during testing, click here.

-I had a banner made from Vistaprint (ordered during a sale for just 99 cents) that says "Students do you best on the EOG test".  EOG stands for End Of Grade, that's what we call it here in NC.

Banner from Vistaprint

-Carol from The Middle School Counselor Blog (a fabulous blog by the way) shared this awesome idea of using sidewalk chalk to write positive testing messages at the school entrance.  I shared this idea with the fantastic art teacher at my school and he and several students will be decorating both the front and back entrances of the school.

From The Middle School Counselor Blog (thanks for sharing Carol)

-The AIG teacher gave me a ton of pencils which I tied ribbon with a nice note to give to all the students in 3rd-5th grades (these are the grades who test).

Pencils

Note I attached to the pencils

Finished product!  I used red ribbon to tie the note onto the pencils. 

-I did a lesson with 3rd graders on relaxation and relieving testing anxiety (same as last year).  To see my post on my lesson for testing worries, click here, but I read a different book The Big Test by Julie Danneberg.



This year I decided to add a testing survival kit activity.  Can you guess where I got this idea from ...you guessed right Pinterest!

-I started out by giving each student a plastic bag and testing survival kit card to complete. 

-I created a testing survival kit card for the students to complete as a part of the lesson (we go over the tips during the lesson).  It's a fill in the blank activity, since students are more likely to remember what they write down, versus me just talking.  I used an Avery postcard paper template so that I could fit 4 on one page.  I also copied on colored paper for a little flare.

Testing survival kit cards (copied on colored paper).  

Copy of slide to complete with test taking survival kit activity 

-As we completed our survival kit card, I passed out the item that went along with the saying.  I got all my survival kit items from Walmart.  Here are the pictures of the items needed and sayings to go along with it for the survival kit.

Starbursts:  You're a star so aim high

Toothpick:  Carefully pick your answers

Gum:  Stick to it and do your best!

Red Balloon:  You are totally REaDy for the test!

Student completing his test taking survival kit, with his kit nearby.  

The students LOVED this lesson and activity and it certainly didn't hurt that everyone got a parting gift.  I hope that this helped to relieve some of their testing worries.

What do you do to help calm testing worries?




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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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Counselor Pocket Chart

A 1st grade teacher friend recently gave me one of her extra pocket charts (it's her very 1st year as a teacher and she had several given to her).  As I happily took the pocket chart, I already had an idea in mind of how to use it. I thought of a previous post on "I statements" from blog buddy Tabitha from Scrapbook of a School Counselor and how she used whiteboard sentence strips for "I statements".  I thought why not use similar statements on a pocket chart?

Pocket chart

Here's what I did:

-I started out with 2 "I statements","I feel" and "I like to"; I typed these statements in Word.  I cut and glued the "statements" onto sentence strips and trimmed the edges with wave trim scissors.

Printed "I statements"

"I statements" cut, glued onto sentence strips, trimmed with wave trim scissors

-I typed (feeling & action) words into a Word document and printed onto mailing labels.  I put the mailing labels onto colorful index cards (I put words on both sides of the cards).  I also made some blank cards so that students can write a feeling/action with a dry erase marker.

Here's a list of feelings words I used:  Happy, Awesome, Sad, Down, Angry, Upset, Fantastic, Great, Ok, Not Sure, Really Angry

Here's a list of action words I used: Play, Run, Play Outside, Read, Write, Hang out with friends, Hang out with family, Listen to music, Draw.

Feelings words printed on mailing labels

Feelings/Action cards

-I laminated the "I statements" and index cards.

-The pocket chart is now ready to go:

Finished product!

I LOVE this counselor pocket chart idea for students to express how they're feeling and what they like to do! I'm now thinking of other ways to use the pocket chart.  Do you have any ideas to share?  I'd love to hear from you.

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Spotlight Character Ed Books at Your School

Each month my school focuses on a character trait for the month. These traits (responsibility, respect, courage, kindness, self-discipline, integrity, perseverance & good judgment) are chosen by my school district.  I thought of a neat way to remind students of what the character trait of the month is by making a featured character trait of the month book spotlight shelf in the library.  I spoke with the librarian and asked if I could have a shelf to display books based on the character trait of the month for students to check out.  The librarian at my school is fantastic and is so very helpful with my numerous counselor "projects".  She gave me a shelf to use in a library prime real estate area (right in front of the checkout computers) so you can't miss it!

I made signs for each character trait of the month using Word and printed and laminated each sign.  I did have to measure and trim the edges of the signs to fit in the frame.  I used the frame insert as my guide to measure.  I put the signs in a "fancy" frame I found on sale from Pier 1 Imports ($8.00).  I pulled about 10-15 books (for all reading & grade levels) to put on the shelf to display. 

Responsibility

Kindness

Trimming edges of sign so they'll fit in the frame.

Edges trimmed

Wow, what a difference a frame makes!

So here's a picture of my shelf before the "transformation":

Before the character ed "transformation"

So with a few book stands and a new picture frame here's the finished product...

Book stands, $3.99 (w/coupon) Bed, Bath & Beyond.  I bought 4 stands. 

Character Books Spotlight: Responsibility

I made the "Character Books Spotlight" sign using Word, printed & glued the words on a sentence strip (courtesy of a 1st grade teacher).  I glued a colored backing on the back of the sentence strip and laminated the sign (so it will hold up better from wear and tear).

I can tell that this book showcase is working very well.  After the 1st week of setting up the "character books spotlight" most of the books displayed were checked out by students, so I had to pull more books to keep the shelf full.  I'll update the shelf each month (or as needed) with books based on the trait of the month.   

To get my book list, the counselor intern found some character book suggestions online and I asked for suggestions from my librarian.  I email the list of books for the month to the librarian.   The parent library volunteers pull the books that we have from my list for me and I set up the display.  It took about 10 mins (or less) to set up. 

Just in case you're wondering what books I used for Responsibility, here's my list:

-My Penguin Osbert (Kimmel)

-Big Words for Little People (Curtis & Cornell)

-Judy Moody Saves the World (McDonald)

-Because of Winn-Dixie (Di Cavilla)

-Shiloh (Naylor)

-The Biggest Bear (Ward)

-Angelina's Birthday (Holabird)

-Ramona the Brave (Clearly)

-Chair for my Mother (Williams)

-The Lemonade War (Davies)

-Frank & Ernest on the Road (Day)

-Miss Rumphus (Cooney)

-Mr. Popper's Penguins (Atwater)

-There's a Boy in the Girl's Bathroom (Sachar)

This was an easy and simple project to do.  I think that this will be another great way to reinforce the character trait of the month. 

Do you have a way to recognize character education books at your school?

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