by schoolcounselingbyheart | Dec 5, 2012 | abuse, children's literature, classroom lessons
My first grade sexual abuse prevention lessons revisit and build upon the skills and concepts covered in kindergarten. (See Kindergarten Lessons for Sexual Abuse Prevention.) For this series of three lessons you will need the books I Can Play It Safe by Alison Feigh, Your Body Belongs to You by Cornelia Maude Spelman, and Do You Have a Secret? by Jennifer Moore-Mallinos. For the activities you will also need some coloring pages, a Good Secrets Box, and Secrets Cards. (Find links for these resources below.) (more…)
by schoolcounselingbyheart | Dec 1, 2012 | career
In an earlier post, Role Models – on Paper!, I shared the fun and informative Career Paper Dolls created by Hannah Holt of Lightbulb Books. Hannah has added more interesting career characters to her collection, and she even included some neuroscientists, which I had requested! (Learning about the brain is a BIG deal at our school!) The newly highlighted careers are neurologist, neurosurgeon, mathematician, post-doc computer programmer, large animal veterinarian, and helicopter pilot. (more…)
by schoolcounselingbyheart | Nov 30, 2012 | bullying, children's literature, classroom lessons
This year I decided to rework our fourth grade bullying prevention unit so that it builds upon the visually rich and thought-provoking book Goodbye Bully Machine by Debbie Fox. We’re in the midst of it now, and it’s going really well. I’ll share all the lessons and resources once we’ve completed the unit, but am so excited that I wanted to share this piece of it right away! Today our fourth graders put on a play based on the book, and you can see it in this video. (It runs a little more than 6 minutes.) (more…)
by schoolcounselingbyheart | Nov 25, 2012 | abuse, children's literature, classroom lessons
Many people have asked if I would share the sexual abuse lessons that I teach in grades K-5, and I am most happy to oblige. Deciding how best to teach about sexual abuse prevention can be a daunting task. It is such an important topic, but so loaded – because of the content, because of the potential for concern from parents, for cultural reasons, and perhaps even because the issue of sexual abuse may hit close to home for the person who is teaching about it. But despite this, kids MUST be taught how to respond to situations in which they are being groomed for abuse or abused! Otherwise they will not know what to do! We spend a lot of time and effort teaching them how to (more…)
by schoolcounselingbyheart | Nov 18, 2012 | This wacky job!
SuperCounselor is thankful for all of her kind and faithful readers who no doubt understand that the recent dearth of posts is directly related to all the superheroics that she has had to perform in this pre-holiday season. (She knows you’ve been being superheroic yourself! ‘Tis the season, after all.) She promises that she will actually finish and post some useful stuff soon, but right now she’s got two more crazy days of school, and company’s coming, so all she has time and energy for at the moment is something easy, like introducing you to her family. (Wait, did I say her family was easy????) This year, SuperCounselor will be hosting Thanksgiving dinner at her house. (Surprise! She doesn’t actually live at school, although sometimes it feels that way.) She is so thankful for her family members, who have helped make her the superhero she is today. (Perhaps you’ll be able to tell how!) Here’s who will be sitting around her table . . . (more…)
