Understood.org

If you are not familiar with this web site understood.org I strongly recommend you check it out. Although it is primarily designed for parents it has many useful references for educators. You will also want to tell parent of children with learning and attention issues to  explore it. I learned about it from an ASCA webinar which you can watch but it pretty much just walks you through the site so you don't really need to watch it. I added it to my bookmarks and I am sure you will too.

How to Help with Math Anxiety

I have shared this infographic from www.mathsinsider.com with my parents via Twitter. My school has data to show our girls in grades 3 and 5 do not do as well on standardized math assessments as the boys. It is not a difference in ability so this year I am trying to raise parents awareness of ways to encourage girls in math (and science) and identify and remediate any barriers. 

Academic Lesson for Grade 2

I wanted to share one of my session plans, PowerPoint, and handout to evaluate if students met objectives.

Academic Success Grade 2 Lesson Plan by mbmcc

Skills for Learning Grade 2 by mbmcc

Doing My Best Grade 2 Handout by mbmcc

#ReachHigher

My first lesson of the year in grade 5 involves discussion of growth mindset and setting a reach higher goal. I explained that it is better to focus on what they need to improve and strategies than getting an A or a B. The lesson was successful judged by the fact that I got less than 10% who wrote a goal to get a specific grade. They each wrote their goal on an arm cut out - it makes a nice "kid work" bulletin board display.

#Reach Higher: Grit and Goals

I have decided to redo my fifth grade goal setting lesson on academic success. I am now calling it #Reach Higher: Grit and Goals.  The lesson will address several of the ASCA Mindsets & Behaviors For Student Success. The self-management skills and learning strategies covered include:  

Self-Management Skills: 2. Demonstrate self-discipline and self-control  4. Ability to delay immediate gratification for long-term rewards  5. Demonstrate perseverance to achieve long- and short-term goals

Learning Strategies: 7. Identify long- and short-term academic, career and social/emotional goals

As the hook I am going to have the students complete the 12- item Grit Scale. I will put the scoring part on the PowerPoint. Once they are focused on their own level of grit I will use the PowerPoint to guide a mini lesson tying grit to goals and then have them write a #Reach Higher goal that I will then post as a bulletin board.

If you want to learn more about "grit" or share this key concept with parents I recommend Paul Tough's book. We used it in the past as our parent/staff book club book.

Grit: The Key to Your Success at FLVS

I am going to show this video in either grade 4 or 5 as an introduction to goal setting.  I follow-up with another lesson in grade 5 that uses the Grit Scale. I hope the short video will inspire the students set challenging goals for their own academic success.

Organizing thinking and writing: School Success Skills

In my Step up to Success groups with third and fourth graders, most of them do not construct decent paragraphs.  I have adapted this from the color scheme used in Step Up to Writing where these colors are used to highlight sentences.  I have found that a visual like the house helps some learners understand why the first and last sentences are so important, rather than just highlighting them with a green marker.  I do like the Step Up to Writing program because it is multisensory and meets the needs of more learners.

Video I Use for Lesson on Perseverance

No Longer a Dilly Dally by Carl Sommer

A book you might want to check out for a character education lesson on responsibility or for an academic lesson if No Longer a Dilly Dally.  There are several lessons available online that use this book
www.ncyi.org/ The book is also used for an activity in the book by Robin Zorn (ASCA Counselor of the Year) to teach good study habits. I bought Robin's book at ASCA and am planning to use it to develop a study habits group for grade 3 this coming school year. STEP UP to Better Grades (Space, Tools, Ending, Pay attention, Understanding directions and Practice) can be used for small groups or classroom lesson. It has a CD with parent letters, power points, and reproducible pages.It is available from youthlight.com

Grit

Graffiti Wall

This is a good wrap up technique to use in the final session of a study skills group.  I was very pleased to see how much the members remembered about topics we had covered the past 10 weeks.  Each member was able to write at least 2 unique topics and share what they learned.  A few members were able to add additional ones so that almost all the topics I felt were important ended up on the "graffiti wall."

Executive Function Skills

School Specialty Inc. has a free white paper , “Executive Function Skills,” that explains how academic success is dependent on a student’s consistent time-management and planning skills. The paper provides details about the importance of focusing classroom instruction on self-regulation, self-awareness, goal-directed behavior, self-monitoring and flexibility to solve problems and aid students in developing a study plan, setting goals and developing action plans.  The paper explains the research in executive function skills and gives suggestions for the classroom.  The School Specialty web page has many excellent free resources that counselors could use.