Counseling Classroom Lessons

Topics that will be covered during the school year are listed below.

Give Me 5

Give me 5 outlines my expectations of of students during lessons, and is a topic covered all school year. Students are to do five things in order to focus on the lesson during the 30 minutes I am teaching them that day (every 2 weeks):

1. Have their eyes on the speaker
2. Keep their lips closed
3. Have their ears listening
4. Keep their hands and feet quiet
5. Sit up straight

I give feedback to students during the lesson by giving points when the class continues to give me 5. I record the amount of points each class has earned, The classes with the highest number of points each month wins the ¨Give me 5 Award¨. Each student has their own certificate, a picture is taken of the class students with their certificates, and the pictures are featured in the Give me 5 Award bulletin board in the hallway, as well as on our district facebook page. Classes with the highest amount of points collected at the end of the school year are awarded with extra recess hosted by me!

Zones of Regulation

Zones of Regulation lessons help students recognize their feelings, and use strategies when needed to stay calm, focused, and ready to learn. The idea is that we can be in any given zone based on how we are feeling at that moment. There are four colors for four zones:

• Blue ~ the slow moving zone where one is feeling sick, sad, tired, or bored. Wake up tools and talking out feelings are tools that can help one in this zone
• Green ~ the zone where one is moving ¨just right¨. We feel happy, calm, confident, and ready to learn. All we need to do when in this zone is do what we can to stay in this zone such as being kind to others, complement others and enjoy being in this zone!
• Yellow ~ we are moving faster in this zone, and starting to feel uncomfortable. We are starting to loose control, but still have some control to use our awareness to calm ourselves and get back to the green zone.
• Red ~ in this zone we have lost all control, and we are very angry. We teach students to remember to stop before acting, and letting a grown-up help.

Important things to remember: there are no bad zones! We teach zones to help students learn how to identify and manage feelings. Being in a zone that is uncomfortable does not make someone a bad person.

Click here to learn more about the Zones of Regulation

Here is a poster I created using materials from the Zones of Regulation curriculum. It describes each zone, and gives strategies of what you can do in any given zone:

Bucketfilling

A concept created by Carol McCloud that is very simple. Everyone carries an invisible bucket that carries our happy thoughts and feelings. We feel very happy and good when our bucket is full, and we feel very sad and lonely when our bucket is empty, Itś great to have a full bucket, and this is how it works; you need other people to fill your bucket, and other people need you to fill yours! There are many ways to fill a bucket including saying kind things to friends, family, teachers and people in the community. it´s importent to remember that if one is rude or mean, they are dipping into someoneś bucket and taking out the good feelings of that personś bucket.

Bucketfilling lessons are taught to students during their counseling classroom lessons, and the concept is revisited throughout the school year. Parents are engouraged to keep the bucketfilling dialouge going at home too! Below is a copy of the book that started the ball rolling. Pick up a copy, or check it out at your local library, and read it to your child!

For more information visit the bucketfillers website