1 in 5 kids

I was very pleased last night watching the evening news that they were highlighting Mental Health Awareness Month and talking about the fact that 1 in 5 youth in our county have a mental health condition that needs intervention. There are two types of stigma associated with mental illness: social stigma and self-stigma. Hopefully by equating mental and physical illnesses and talking about it with children we can reduce the stigma. This is my bulletin board that I use each May. It always raises lots of questions like, "What is mental illness" "Do kids at our school have mental illnesses?" "Are you sure there are that many young people with mental illness?" For more information on how to support those with mental illness go to nami.org

Dr. Seuss Book

In honor of his birthday I wanted to share about my favorite of his many books, My Many Colored Days. It also lends itself beautifully to a Bulletin Board or Decorate Your Door for Read Across America Day. I have used this book in so many ways from K through grade 5. If you want a lesson plan for some solid extension activities check out csefel.vanderbilt.edu or theteacherscorner We do Second Step for classroom lessons so I usually use this book in one of my emotion regulation small groups.

Mental Health Awareness Month

This is the bulletin board display we use each May to bring awareness to the fact that 20% of children have mental health challenges in an effort to destigmatize having a diagnosis and promoting treatment. We just change the background, arrangement and the border to keep it looking fresh. It invites kids to ask what does that mean? to me and gives me (and teachers who are asked) an opportunity to have a conversation about mental health challenges. All our staff are being trained a Mental Health First Aider to make them more knowledgeable and comfortable about dealing with students and people in the community who have mental health challenges. We were required to take the course if it is our year to renew our license which for me was this year. To learn more about the course check out mentalhealthfirstaid The goal is for all people in the community (not just educators and mental health providers) to be as comfortable with mental health first aid as CPR. I spoke at our PTA this month on Mental Health Challenges to make parents more aware and answer questions.

Problem-Solving STEPs Bulletin Board

We use the Second Step program in all our schools Kindergarten through grade 8. The curriculum teaches a 4 step problem solving model. This is my bulletin board that stays up this month to remind the students of the STEPs. It is 3-D and super cute, made by our school base substitute teacher for the school counseling program.

Problem Solving Theme: Reading About Problem Solving Bulletin Board

This is the bulletin board outside our school cafeteria which shows the books I use in classroom lessons and with groups to teach problem-solving steps. We used parts of the Kindness board from last month to simplify the task of swapping out our boards monthly.

My Many Colored Days Bulletin Board

For Dr. Seuss' birthday March 2 I frequently turn My Many Colored Days into a bulletin board or door decoration. The books associates moods and emotions with colors and animals which is depicted on the display. This year we added the animals because I found the outlines on line at many_colored_days The outlines are the last few pages of this pdf. If you look at the Bulletin Board page you can see how we used this in the past along with our Empathy theme in November.

College/Career Readiness #NSCW17

ASCA wanted school counselors to promote college and career readiness today, the last day of National School Counseling Week. I don't ask my students what they want to be when they grow up (today's sign) because many will do jobs that do not currently exist. We promote the exploration of the 16 career clusters and talk about all postsecondary options. Staff and students are encouraged to wear college gear the first Friday of each month that students are in school. Staff is proud to show off their favorite college(s). I am in the picture with our library staff and their beautiful bulletin board!

Choose Kindness Theme: Reading About Kindness Makes Your Brain Happy

Reading About Kindness Makes Your Brain Happy

The Counseling Programs theme for February is Choose Kindness. We are implementing MindUp by the Hawn Foundation this year and the curriculum includes some good lessons to promote optimism, gratitude, and kindness. It makes the connection to mindfulness by teaching Kindness means caring about or helping someone or something. It is a mindful choice. This bulletin board was designed by our talented School-based Sub who makes most of my bulletin boards. It displays the covers of books that appeal to kindergarten through grade 5, including some of those I read aloud in K-grade 3. Kindness makes the doer, recipient, and observer of the act happier. We wanted to make it easy for children to find books about people who choose kindness.

Perseverance

To go along with lesson on grit is my December bulletin board on Perseverance. This board is an adaption of the one in Rosanne Sheritz Sartori's book Counseling On the Wall. You just down load the quotes from the CD that comes with the book. I used it several years ago and just updated it with a different background, border, and sparkly stars (from Target dollar section). It was super easy and reinforces what I am covering in classes and my resiliency groups.

Check out bulletin boards for every month of the school year on the Bulletin Board page of this website.

Empathy Bulletin Board

The MindUp curriculum has a lesson on Expressing Gratitude. It is based on research that shows when we think about someone or something we truly appreciate, our bodies calm themselves. I did this lesson in all our second grades this month. The MindUp curriculum guide suggests growing a gratitude tree where each child writes what they appreciate on a leaf. I decided to create a turkey bulletin board instead and each student made a feather expressing appreciation. They were encouraged to think about people and things we usually take for granted. Several students wrote they were grateful for a clean school, others to their nanny for picking them up each day, and many for their family. Happy Thanksgiving!

How will you be the One?

One by Otohsi is one of my favorite books to use to teach students to REFUSE bullying behavior. I have used it in my bullying lesson in October for the past 5 years. This year we were required by our district to teach the Second Step evidence based bullying lessons developed by the Committee for Children. But I know literature based lessons are powerful so my school is continuing using literature at all grade levels to address this bullying. My librarian has been reading a book each year to all grade levels on bullying as part of our school-wide program but she did not love the book she was using in grade 3. I suggested we have her read One and she then developed a great activity to go along with the lesson. She had each student respond to the prompt shown above and she got some heart-filled responses. She then turned them into this great simple bulletin board that is in our main hall. I am so lucky to have a staff that think they all play a part to teach children to spread kindness.

On time on target for success

This is one of my September bulletin boards that was on the main hall for the first day of school and Back-to-School Night. It goes along with Attendance Awareness Month. At our school the classroom doors open at 8:50 and school officially starts with Pledge at 9:00. We try to encourage students to be lined up outside of their classrooms by 8:50. Along side are 2 QR Codes that link parents to articles that provide hints to get children to school on time. Most of my parents have smartphones and they would rather scan these to their phone than take a print copy. The small sign in yellow at the bottom is September Counts! downloaded from attendanceworks.org/ that has lots of great resources.

Kindness Tree

Here is our beautiful Kindness Tree: Acts of Kindness Make Me Bloom adorned with the hearts our kindergarten and first grade students did in response to this month's lesson on kindness. The kindergarten students made a pink heart with an act of kindness for their family to take home and a red heart with an act of kindness to do at school that is displayed. The first graders drew and labeled an acts of kindness for home, school, and the community. Our wonderful volunteer made the 3D tree and the roots are burlap.

Change Mindset Bulletin Board

This is the bulletin board outside my office put together by my awesome volunteer to remind students how to change their words from a fixed to a growth mindset. It also has a QR Code on the left side that if you have a reader takes you to a great article on growth mindset.

#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.

Bullying Prevention Month - Stop Bullying Before It Starts

Pacer's National Bullying Prevention Center has a free toolkit for educators for Preschool - grade 3 to go along with The Legend of Spookley the Square Pumpkin. Two of my volunteers put this up outside my office today and the students walking down the hall got so excited. The Digital Teacher Toolkit allows teachers to stream the movie for free and deliver engaging lessons on bullying prevention  pacer.org/bullying/resources/toolkits/spookley/

Welcome Bulletin Board for New Students and Staff

This is the double bulletin board in the front hall of our school. We got lots of compliments on it last night at Back to School Night. We take pictures of all new students at our "Welcome Reception" that I organize and get help with from my school psychologist or librarian. It is hard to change schools so we want our students (and staff) to become known to our learning community. We typically use a theme for 2 years just to save energy and time. Most of the labor is done by my awesome parent volunteer!

Welcome Back

This Helping Tree themed bulletin board is right outside my office thanks to my wonderful school psychologist. To introduce the student and related services staff team to our learning community we each have our picture on one of the apples. iHELP is the motto of my counseling program, but there are many other helpers that I team with to support the students.

September is Attendance Awareness Month

This is the counseling program bulletin board that greeted families at our Open House during pre-service and sends a positive message about attendance. If you need resources go to
attendanceworks.org/

May is Mental Health Month

This is the bulletin board hanging outside my offfice this month to highlight mental health awareness. NAMI has lots of good ideas and facts to raise awareness nami.org/Get-Involved/Raise-Awareness Several staff and parents have told me they don't feel comfortable with this board but I say that means it is doing its job to reduce the stigma associated with mental illness. Our state, Virginia, has a big campaign for awareness about mental illness in young people. This site aslos has good resources for school counselors http://1in5kids.org/