Cooperation Clubs

I hope that you all are able to use my lesson that I previously posted on synergizing...but I have one more to share!

This lesson is one of my absolute favorites to use with 4th or 5th grade!  A lot of times I see students in this grade level having a difficult time getting along with others.  They are typically forming their close groups of friends, but have a harder time working with other students that they may be assigned to work with.  This lesson is a great one to discover the behaviors that they may exhibit that enhance or inhibit their group's success.  I would love to give credit to whoever came up with this one, but I honestly can't remember where I found it...

Cooperation Clubs

Split students into groups...I select the groups myself and typically try to split up the little friendships so that I can really challenge my students to work with different people.  

Explain to students that they will need to work together as a team to come up with a club.  Their club needs to have:

1. A Club Name
2. A President
3. A secret password
4. A secret handshake
5. A purpose of their club

It is important to not tell students how to accomplish this task, but observe the process, only intervening if they need help.

After students have finished completing their assigned task, have students come up and present their club to the rest of the class.  Discuss what behaviors helped the group work effectively, and what behaviors were not as productive.  Some discussion questions I typically ask are:

• How did you make decisions as a group?
• Did one person take over?
• Did any members sit back and let others do the work?
• How well did you feel that your group did at synergizing?
• What could have helped your group work better together?
• What can we learn from this that can help us in a regular classroom setting?

The kids always love this lesson and learn about themselves to boot, and I love it too!  I hope you have fun synergizing with your cooperative trays and cooperation clubs! :)

Cooperative Tray

As I have already shared with you, I am split between two schools this year.  At one school, I primarily work with Kindergarten and 1st grade, and at the other school I primarily work with 2nd and 3rd grade.  I love that even being at two different schools, I am still able to serve a variety of ages.  At both schools, we teach the 7 Habits of Happy Kids as our classroom curriculum.  I was very excited about this, because I have been using the 7 Habits for years in my classroom lessons, small groups, and individual counseling sessions.  Last month, our focus was on "Habit 6: Synergize" which has to do with cooperation, tolerance, and teamwork.  One of my favorite lessons is one that was shared with me several years ago from my counseling internship supervisor, Ann!  I still love this lesson and use it to this day...

The Cooperative Tray:

The purpose of this lesson is for students to see first hand that you are able to accomplish more as a team than you are alone.  (We also discuss how sometimes it is hard to work with different people, but that this is what a true "synergizer" is able to do).

First, you will need to prepare your tray:  

1.  Find some type of tray to use (or beg your cafeteria for one if they still have them...) :)
2.  Select 14-15 random items that you can mount to your tray.
3.  Mount the items onto the tray securely...mounting tape, hot glue, or super glue should all work.
4.  Use some type of cloth to cover your tray.

Lesson Procedures:

As the lesson begins, pretend to be super serious and explain to students that they need to quickly be quiet, pull out a piece of paper and a pencil.  Today we will be taking a test.  This is very serious so there should be no talking or I will know that they are cheating!  Tell students to number their paper from 1-14 (or however many items you have)

After the moans and groans, explain to students that today we will be taking a memory test.  This is an individual activity because we want to see how much they can remember.  Make sure to tell them to cover their papers because you are looking to see who remembers the most.

Walk around the room showing each table the items on the tray, explaining to students that they  may not pick up their pencil until you tell them "GO!"  Once everyone has had a good look, cover up the tray again and tell the students to begin.

Typically, students remember about 6-8 items from the tray.  I tell them all "great job!" and that this is what I expected for them to remember.  Next, I tell them that they did a pretty good job on their own, but I want to see how they do as a team.  Allow students to work with a partner (or their table group) to see if they can get all 14 items.

Students will usually remember more items, but not all 14.  We talk about this.  Then, I tell them we will work as a whole class to see if we can remember all 14 items.  We are easily able to remember them all.  We check our work by looking at the tray and then discuss the activity.  Students are easily able to gather that when we work as a team, we are able to accomplish more and do a better job than when we work alone.  This leads to a discussion of behaviors that help us be successful in working as a team and behaviors that keep us from doing our best.


I hope you enjoy this "Synergize" lesson and would love to hear more lessons that you use to teach the 7 Habits!

Using the Habits to Solve Conflicts

It has been such a busy time for us all, I haven't had time to blog.  But as part of my personal growth, "sharpening the saw" is one of the 7 Habits I need to dedicate more time to.  For me, blogging sharpens my saw! 

Yesterday I was meeting with 2 students who were experiencing some friendship issues (I dedicate a lot of counseling sessions to this type of thing).  Usually I find it is best to have all parties involved present so that we can all talk safely and honestly.  Anyway, I was giving my usual "conflict resolution" strategy suggestions when the light bulb went off!  Why did I never think of this?!  These ARE the 7 Habits.  As I've already posted, we're going through the Leader in Me process and have been teaching the 7 habits for some time now.  I realized that these strategies would probably make a lot more sense to students if I used the language they are used to:  7 habits lingo.  Thus, my teaching tool was born:  Using the 7 Habits to Solve Conflicts.  This was something that was easy for me to explain to students, made sense to them, and integrated concepts we were already teaching.  I even put up this poster outside my office (which is also located right by the bathrooms that my 4th grade friends use).  4th graders by far write me the most notes about this topic, so I thought...hmm, maybe if I post this in a central location, they can try to use the skills first, BEFORE they get to me.  I use the 7 habits in so many ways, but I'm still amazed to see how easily they integrate into everything I do. 

How do you use the 7 Habits to teach conflict resolution?

Pawsitive Behavior Day

Today at our school we celebrated Pawsitive Behavior Day!  (Pawsitive because we are the wildcats).  Although we are not a PBIS school, we still recognize student's positive behavior by giving them "shout outs."  Shout outs are little notes you write when you see a student doing something good.  The notes go in a jar in the front office and my principal reads them over the announcements in the morning and at assemblies.  Students are always so excited to hear their name announced!  Every time students earn a collective 500 shout outs as a school, they earn a Pawsitive Behavior Day!   Pawsitive Behavior Day is a day that is centered around a theme.  Students still do many of their academic tasks, but with a twist.  Even our "specials" block is set up with games centered around the theme.  We go all out--costumes, decorations, etc.  It is so exciting to see student's faces when they get to school that day because they are smiling bigger than ever.  Today we celebrated our students with a Dr. Seuss themed Pawsitive Behavior Day.  Students got to have a green egg relay race, play a "fox in sox" game, and do many more Dr. Seuss themed activities.  By far my favorite moment was seeing a 5th grader who I know pretty well skipping down the hallway because he was so excited.  That is such a rare moment! 

How do you celebrate positive behavior at your school?

Whats your Weather?

As I've already shared, my school has the privilege of becoming a Leader in Me school this year.  Part of Habit 1: Be Proactive is choosing your own weather.  Despite what outside forces are impacting you, we can make the decision to be happy.  This is something I've been focusing a lot of energy on and guess what! IT'S WORKING!  I'm happier than I've ever been, I feel more successful in my work, and it has been much easier to solve conflicts in my personal life. 

So I had a thought...why not use the weather as an assessment tool in finding out how a child is feeling?  So I decided to make the above display for my room:  What's your weather?  The child can pick the weather symbol that best describes how they're feeling and then explain more about what it means.  Here's my thought but it's up to interpretation by each child:

Sunny = happy

Sun peeking behind cloud = feeling OK

Cloudy = not feeling my best

Rainy = sad

Lightening = angry

After the child figures out which weather picture depicts how they are feeling, we will be able to discuss it and then talk about how to make ourselves feel sunny again.  Some other ideas that I've received from others (and use all the time) are the emotions tree, feelings posters, etc. 

What do you use to assess a child's feelings?

It's Finally Here!

Tomorrow is the first day of school for the kiddos!  I am so excited to see their smiling faces tomorrow, and to meet some new ones.  This past week has been jam-packed as far as professional development, which has been somewhat stressful, but definitely motivating!  On Wednesday, the counselors all got together to go over our new NC Essential Standards, so that got me thinking about data and what I do to show what I do.  I've decided to re-vamp my whole system, and I'm so excited to see how it goes.  I got a few ideas from fellow bloggers.  I'm going to keep scheduling students, either using Google calendar, or some other source.

I've also been inspired by many other blogs to try some new things. First of all, I've decided to go back to something we were required to do in graduate school.  I will be keeping a log for each day to show how many hours I spent in each activity (direct services, responsive services, etc.).  Also, I was inspired by Lauren Gentry at Cool School Counseling to track my individual students (confidentially) and list what issue I saw them for.  That way, I can create a end of the year report (inspired by Marissa Rex at Elementary School Counseling).

Finally, I'm excited to announce that I will be doing Minute Meetings at the beginning of the year as well as the end of the year.  This idea came from Danielle Schultz at School Counselor Blog.  I was a little nervous as to what the teachers would think of this idea, as it will be another time for me to pull their students, but the feedback has been awesome!  So many teachers have come to me to tell me how excited they are that I will be doing this.  It will allow me to meet with 100% of the students, and provide some excellent data (and referrals).

As I shared earlier, I have been involved in a lot of professional development over the past week.  I'm excited to announce that my school has been chosen to participate in the Leader in Me process!  If you are unfamiliar with the Leader in Me, it is a school wide program based on The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey.  We have taught the 7 Habits the past for years, but I cannot wait to become a Lighthouse school!  So far, we have completed the Signature training, which has been life changing!  It has challenged us to look at ourselves and realize our own leadership potential.  I am so excited for this opportunity to grow personally and professionally.  I can't wait to share this with my school staff and my students!

The 7 Habits of Happy Kids

As promised, I am posting more about the 7 habits.  This is a school wide initiative at my school that we have been doing for the past 3 years.  The 7 Habits of Happy Kids is written by Sean Covey, son of author Stephen Covey (The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People) and is aimed at elementary school age readers.  The book is composed of 7 short stories with a colorful crew of characters that students can relate with.  The stories teach the reader about each of the 7 habits by using nonfiction characters.  We started our initiative by beginning a Synergy Team.  This team was composed of several teachers and other certified staff at the school who would pilot the program.  These teachers were asked to cover the first 4 habits in their classroom.  Read the story, teach the skill, practice the skill.  It spread like wild fire!  Now, not only have we adopted all 7 habits in EVERY classroom, but our principal has made a block of time in our schedule daily for prosocial skills.  We call it Wildcat Team Time (WTT for short) and it lasts 20 minutes at the beginning of each day.  Teachers use the 7 habits along with other resources  to teach children about these skills that are so important to becoming leaders.  (That's our focus here...we're leaders and learners!)  The kids love the books, use the language, and refer to the skills on a daily basis.  It's amazing to see! 

The 7 Habits are:

Habit 1:  Be Proactive
Habit 2: Begin with the End in Mind
Habit 3: Put First Things First
Habit 4: Think Win-Win
Habit 5: Seek First to Understand, Then to be Understood
Habit 6: Synergize
Habit 7: Sharpen the Saw

Not only do our students succeed socially using these skills, but academically as well.  Teaching them to leaders has helped to teach them to take ownership for their learning and to be self-assessing.  After the initial success of the 7 habits in our school, we decided to give the parents an opportunity to learn more.  The Synergy Team hosted a parent night called "Growing Leaders With the 7 Habits."  After the information session, parents were given the opportunity to attend a 7 night workshop focusing on how to implement the 7 habits at home, hosted by yours truly!  I had so much fun discussing how these skills can be implemented in the home with several parents.  In the future, I'll have to rethink the time/dates because there weren't as many parents in attendance as we'd hoped.  I wish I had time to list all of the amazing things our teachers have done with the habits but I'd be sitting here all day!  A great resource to check out on the 7 habits is http://www.theleaderinme.org/

How have you used the 7 habits?  What lessons have you implemented using the habits? 

Happy Holiday Break

As we are winding down before Christmas break, I'm thinking about how I will spend my time while I'm not in school.  Of course, I will fill my time with family, my dog, and REST! But I won't know what to think without my busy schedule.  I'm sure I will be already planning out ideas for when we return, but I think it's important to remember Habit # 7 (from Sean Covey's 7 Habits for Happy Kids): Sharpen the Saw.  (I will be posting more about the 7 habits later).  Hiking with my dog is by far the best way for me to stay sharp!  It always seems like I am more inspired and able to serve my students after a restful break.  So...here's wishing everyone a restful break and a Merry Christmas!

How do you "sharpen the saw"?

 My dog, Deakon