Back To School Night (B2SN)

Every year the specialist are asked to attend one of the Back To School Nights (B2SN) at school.  This year, I attended for grades 4-6 and talked about the service learning project with the 6th grade parents.  I meet a few families and we had a table for our display.  We had one of the nicest tables out of the specialists.  Parents took a bunch of flyers that my counseling partner had printed, as well as a few of our brochures about the school counseling program.

Here is a picture of our display at B2SN

NetSmartz Kids at Old Navy?

Our family was out last weekend and we were out and about and I had to make a return to Old Navy.  While I was in line, my husband and son were coloring a table.  When I went over, I was totally surprised to see NetSmartz Kids on the table.  I use "Clicky" and NetSmartz kids every year with the kids for internet safety in the spring.  Loved seeing something that I actually use in my school counseling program.  It put a smile on my face.  

Check out www.NetSmartzkids.org for great ideas for lessons.  You can also contact them for a free educators packet, which has presentations, worksheets and tips for parents that you can use for your program.

Below you will see a few of the handouts and "Clicky" the robot that were available at my Old Navy!

Kindergarten Parent Coffee

Very last minute my principal asked for me to put together a Kindergarten Parent Coffee for all Kindergarten parents on the first day of school.  We wanted to get the parents have somewhere to go so they were not lingering outside of the Kindergarten classrooms.  I threw together a flyer with the help of another school counselor within my counseling pyramid. 

I was imagining it to be a meet and greet, but even one started having a seat and waiting for an exact presentation.  The parents were all very nice and seem grateful for having a chance to talk to the school counselor, principal, and also able to ask "school related" questions.

Overall it went very well, even though it was throw together last minute.  For next year, I now know what to expect!

Below are some pictures from the morning event as well as pictures of the flyer that I made of the PowerPoint Presentation slides.

Centre View Northern Edition Paper- School Counselor Interview?

Last week a reporter was interviewing for the Centre View Northern Edition and my principal called me down to be interviewed, to my surprise. Glad to see I was not the only school counselor, who was interviewed with in my pyramid.  I am not sure if she exactly got what I was saying about working collabortely with students, teachers, parents & staff member, but it works!

 

Check out the digital paper online at this link:

http://connectionarchives.com/PDF/2013/090413/Centreview%20North.pdf

Grocery Store Check Out, Ability Tests?

Happy Labor Day everyone. I went to grab a few last supplies for our Korean BBQ that we are going to this afternoon. We thought it would be fun to bring some authentic Korean sides. We went to Lotte Plaza which is described as a "high quality Asian Market" near our home. Just as we were checking out I saw these and had to take a few pictures. 

I have seen a lot of things at a check out, but never study guide books on how to ace ability standardized tests including the NNAT 2 (non-verbal abilities) & CogAT (which gives scores for verbal, quantitative & nonverbal). These scores are used in our Advance Academics screening process. Advanced Academic Program (AA) use to be called gifted and talented program (GT).  In FCPS all 1st graders take the NNAT 2 and all second graders take the CogAT. 

 

Marco Products

Does anyone use Marco products?  I do!  I like the groups on the go book. Every year at our elementary inservice they have a booth!  I saw lots books that I already had a few new things that I want to put on my amazon.com wish list!

Here is a picture of some of the elementary counselors 

 

There website is...

www.marcoproducts.com

New School...New Office

I was very excited to start at my new school in FCPS at Poplar Tree.  I had lots and lots of my own boxes in addition to lots of goodies from the retiring school counselors.

Here are some pictures of the before and after!  Still have some wall hanging to get up!

Before:

Putting things away!

After Organization:  Final pictures later after everything is up on the walls & chalk board completed. 

This was completely packed, did a bunch of organizing and moving things around to make space for some of my stuff.

Still a work in progress!

One of my Target goodies from the $1.00 section. 

Where is Mrs. MacWhorter? On my door.  Pinterest inspired!

Google doc: Student Check in on iPad

Saw a few different tutorials on creating a student check in survey on the iPad. I decided one night after I put Brooks to bed that I would try it out. I am very lucky that next year at my new elementary school that I will have access to my own iPad.  I have be pinning lots of ideas on how to use the iPad in my school counseling program.   I know that I could get buy in from the kids, as I know they think the iPad is a cool tool to use.  

When I created my student check-in survey, I was looking at this elementary school counselor webpage.  Check out her tutorial on this webpage. Http://elemschoolcounselor.blogspot.com

Example:

I created a google account for google docs.  This summer it has been my goal to try to learn and use google docs, so I can share some of my word documents and lesson plans on my blog.  

Here is my survey that I created on Google Docs.  so proud and would not have been able to create it without the help of YouTube & Pinterest!

Target Goodies

So excited that Brooks and I found new things in the dollar section at Target. Check out all these goodies that I got just for $1.00 each!  I could have bought more, but since I am starting at a new school, I am worried at being in a smaller room and not having enough wall space, with all my other posters & wall decorations. 

Poster 1 of 3

Cute Owl Poster 1 of 3

Poster 2 of 3

For Mrs. Elementary School Counselor

I am always breaking these to hold my badge. 

Thanks Tagert for all the goodies!

Creativity in the summer?

I know I am on summer vacation and have lots of opportunity to try to be creative, but honestly my mind and energy have been totally spent on my almost 2 year old son Brooks. I enjoy spending every minute with him, but am also very glad when nap times comes, he is one busy boy!

I keep seeing all these great ideas on Pinterest and some from the ASCA conference. My first goal is to learn how to figure out google documents and find an easy way to share word documents on my blog and FB page. Right now that is my biggest issue with blogger. I want to be able to share the actual word document and not just a iPhone picture capturing a word document. My goal for the summer is to at least blog once a week.

A couple pictures from our 1st beach trip of the summer.

Some decorations for my new office!

At the end of the year, I had some 6th graders looking for projects that they could help me out with.  They did a great job making these adorable posters (with a little help from their school counselor). I know I can use them for bulletin boards or for decorations on my office walls!

I use rainbow fish for my kindergarten classroom guidance lesson and personal space camp for my 1st grade classroom guidance lessons.  Great books, GREAT classroom guidance lessons!

Below are the links for both of these books on amazon!

http://www.amazon.com/The-Rainbow-Fish-Marcus-Pfister/dp/1558580093/ref=sr_1_8?ie=UTF8&qid=1371866366&sr=8-8&keywords=rainbow+fish+hardcover

http://www.amazon.com/Personal-Space-Camp-Julia-Cook/dp/1931636877/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1371866518&sr=1-1&keywords=personal+space+camp

The Healing Heroes Book: Watering Can Press

All FCPS elementary school counselors received 10 copies of the book "The Healing Heroes Book" at the very end of the school year.  This would be a great resource to use with a small group or with an individual student who has a loved one that is deployed.  I took a few pictures (with my iPhone) to give examples of what some of the worksheets look like.  This book could be partially completed during the deployment group or with an individual student and then rest of it could be completed at the students home.

Here is the link to show all of their books!
http://www.wateringcanpress.com

My last day at Silverbrook... mixed emotions!

I have mixed emotions as I start a new page in my school counseling career. I will be leaving Silverbrook Elementary for a new school in FCPS closer to my home!  I am excited to be going to Poplar Tree Elementary and starting a new chapter in the fall.  As I wrote to the staff today... "I believe that if you do what you love, at a place that loves you back, you are one lucky school counselor.  Thank you for making my years here at Silverbrook so great.  You will ALL be missed"

Here are all the goodies packed up from my office!  Thank goodness I have a garage for storage over the summer! 

Amazon.com School Counseling Wish List

My husband's family does Amazon wish lists for the holidays.  It is a great way to get everyone what they really want!  So I thought, why not a school counseling wish list.  Here is my school counseling wish list! Every time one of my counseling co-workers suggest a book or game, I quickly remember to write it down and add it to my amazon.com wish list.  :)

Mrs. Elementary School Counselor Amazon.com Wish List

Blogging from my iPhone?!??

Okay, I am trying to write my first blog post from my iPhone. I know it is easy to use my laptop, but honestly my iPhone is ALWAYS with me, so I just downloaded the blogger.com app and here we go!

I saw this book on a 3rd grade teachers desk after one of my classroom guidance lessons and I asked if I could read it. Of course she said yes, so I did. It is a cute book and I could totally see it working for a classroom guidance lesson.  Worth a read, if you have it in your schools library!  I know a cute worksheet is in the works.

Love, Mrs. Elementary School Counselor

Here is a sample page from the book that I found from online.



Mrs. MacW's idea for a blog...

I know there are so many blogs on school counseling, but I thought it would be neat to look at pins from Pintrest and see how I create them into school counseling lessons or activities to do with students.  I am starting in the fall at a new elementary school in Fairfax County Public Schools.  Excited to start a new adventure and I thought I would try a blog, if it does not take too much time.