Classroom Lessons
I will be in every classroom this school year teaching Zones of Regulation, personal safety, bullying prevention, and character education curriculum. The majority of my lessons come from several curricula created by the Committee for Children, a nonprofit organization. The CFC is the world's largest provider of research-based educational programs that promote skills for learning, personal safety, emotional regulation, and conflict resolution.
District Elementary Counseling Scope & Sequence
Second Step: Skills for Social and Academic Success
Second Step: Skills for Social and Academic Success is an K-5 evidence-based curriculum focus on mental health which is targeted to the student's age and development. The program is divided in the following sections:
Skills for Learning
Skills Include: Skills for learning, focusing one's attention, following directions, positive self talk, staying on task, and being assertive
Empathy
Skills Include: Feelings, respecting differences, showing compassion, and identifying cues
Emotion Management
Skills Include: Strong feelings, calming down, managing strong emotions, and avoiding assumptions
Problem Solving
Skills Include: Solving problems, making a plan, taking responsibility for your actions, seeking help, peer pressure, and playing fair on the playground
Second Step: Bully Prevention Unit
We also use the Second Step Bullying Prevention Unit across all grade levels at West Ridge. In the lessons, your child will learn specific skills to help stop bullying. Students will learn how to:
Recognize when bullying is happening. All students in our school learn that bullying is when one person or group of people are purposely doing things that are mean to another. Bullying behavior may include purposely leaving somebody out, physically hurting someone else's body or things and/or making fun for someone because of the way they look, ability level, religion or gender. It is one-sided and happens more than once.
Report bullying to a caring adult. We discuss who a student may report bullying to within our building and how to get the quickest help and support (i.e. student can always report bullying to the school counselor, or they can report to the nearest adult for immediate assistance).
Refuse to let bullying happen to themselves or others. All student in our school will be able to tell you the difference between being passive, aggressive, and assertive and how to stand up for yourself and others
Be a bystander who stands up and is part of the solution to bullying. We discuss various strategies for helping a student who is being bullied from assertively telling others to stop, reporting incidents to an adult, and/or quietly supporting/playing with a student who has been the target of bullying behavior.
Additional Links for Parents on Bullying:
PACER's National Bullying Prevention Center
https://www.pacer.org/bullying/
Second Step: Personal Safety
The personal safety student lessons encourage help-seeking behavior and positive student norms by teaching students to recognize, refuse, and report unsafe or abusive situations. Topics covered include:
Personal Safety: Students will learn important safety rules, such as safety with guns, sharp tools, and fire, and when riding on wheels or in cars. They will also learn ways to help them decide if something is safe or not.
Touching Safety: Students will learn about safe, unsafe, and unwanted touches, and the Touching Rule. They’ll also learn to say no to unsafe or unwanted touches using an assertive voice. Students will also learn to tell an adult if someone breaks rules about touching private body parts and who those trusted adults are.
Assertiveness: These lessons will also give students a chance to practice asking an adult for help, telling an adult about an unsafe situation, and being assertive to get out of unsafe situations.
Zones of Regulation
Zones of Regulation is an evidence-based program is a framework and curriculum which helps students develop emotional regulation skills. Students will build awareness of their feelings and utilize a plethora of strategies for regulation. prosocial skills, self-care, and overall wellness. The Zones are broken into four colors: Blue, Green, Yellow, and Red Zone. Students will learn which feelings go into each Zone and what tools to use in order to feel calm and ready for the day. Zones of Regulation provides a common language to us with students in all settings. This allows all stakeholders to best support the student through consistency. Consistency is a key component with shaping behaviors.
