April is the final month for guidance lessons in all classrooms. This month we are focusing on Careers in 2nd-5th grade. Students learned the difference between a job and a career. We also spoke about why thinking about careers in elementary school is important and worthwhile. 4th grade completed a survey about Career Cafe and the results were awesome! Nearly 90% of those who took the survey said that attending Career Cafe this year made them want to work harder in school to help them reach their goals of having a great career. 1st grade brushed up on the "tattling rules" with the book Tattlin' Madeline by Carol Cummings. The teachers seemed to be very thankful as this was starting to be something students needed a reminder on as the year winds down.
March was a busy month at DCES. 3rd, 4th, and 5th were busy showing what they know on ISTEP and I-READ testing. I spent time doing lessons in 1st and 2nd during this month only. 1st grade finished their Fuzzy adventure with a final story about Fuzzy learning how to be a great leader. Students were sad to see the adventure end but had learned a great deal about listening and being the best student they can be. 2nd grade talked about knowing when a problem required adult intervention and when it was one that could be handled on their own. They went through the steps of problem solving and presented their given practice scenarios to the class.
For the month of February we start gearing up for state testing which begins next month. 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade heard another book by one of my favorite authors, Julia Cook. She recently published The Anti-Test Anxiety Society which teaches students the "Dynamic Dozen" which should be used to reduce the stress that can come with big tests. Students were then asked to write down all their fears when it came to testing and we then ripped up those fears as a symbolic way to show that we now had 12 things we could do to overcome those fears in testing. At the end of all big state testing in May the classes will dump their fears in the trash as one final release.
1st grade finished their adventures with Fuzzy and learning how to be great students. In the final story they saw Fuzzy step up to be a great leader. I challenged all of them to become great leaders in their strengths just like Fuzzy did. Students were sad to see the adventure end. 2nd grade went through Mrs. Newman's top eleven ways to have no friends. We talked about how things we do can make others not want to be around us. We turned this eleven into positives of what we should do to be great friends and likable people. |
Jeanine NewmanProfessional Elementary School Counselor Archives
August 2017
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