Cooperation

We are helpful to our families
Grade Level: K-3
Objectives: The student will become aware of the interdependency of family members.
Materials Needed: Paper and Crayons
Directions:

1. Instruct the students to fold their papers in half and on one side draw and color a picture of him/herself and on the other side draw his family. Also tell them to draw a circle above each member. They will use the circle later in the activity.
2. After discussing the meaning of the work DEPEND, ask each child to describe ways in which they depend on their parents: for example, income, play, teaching, love, care, etc… have children draw a star in the circle above the parents that illustrate the responsibilities of the parents.
3. Discuss how children have responsibilities at home. Ask the student to think of ways in which their parents depend on them: for example, making beds, setting the table, taking out the garbage, picking up games and toys, etc… List their responsibilities on the board. Tell the children to draw a heart of their responsibilities in the circle above themselves in their picture.
4. Discuss what might happen if one member of the family fails to do his/her job, and the possible consequences. Ask how a family is like a team.

Difference Between Work and Play

Grade Level: K-3
Objectives: The student will distinguish between work and leisure time activities. The will recognize the importance of both.
Materials Needed: None
Directions:

1. Tell the children: Today I would like for you to think about some of the many activities that you do at school.
2. Write on the board in three columns the following words: (Non-work) Things I Choose to Do, (Work) Things I am Asked to Do, (Both)
3. Ask the children to share thing they do at school. As they say each one, together decide which heading it belongs under.
4. Ask: What is the difference between work and non-work activities? What are some work and non-work activities your parents do? What do we need to work? What do we need to do some non-work activities?

Career Awareness

What I want to be when I grow up
Grade Level: K-3
Objectives: The student will become familiar with different careers and how school will help toward those careers.
Materials Needed: Crayons and Paper (optional idea: paper doll cut outs)
Directions:

1. Ask the students to draw pictures of what they would like to be when they grow up. Or cut out paper dolls and then let the students decorate the paper doll to be what they want to be when they grow up.
2. Have the students hold their pictures up one at a time and have the rest of the class try to guess what it is they drew.
3. After each correct guess, then ask the student "Why would you like to be a (whatever was drawn)? And what things in school will help you to be a good (whatever was drawn)?

M & M Game

The objective of this activity is to "warm students up" to one another in a safe manner and to help them get acquainted. Food is a nurturer, and the number of candies the student takes often takes his/her mind off the risk of disclosure. Pass a bowl of M & M candies around the group. Each student may take as many or few candies as desired, but he/she may not eat them. After all of the students have candy, each student, one at a time, must tell the group one quality about him/herself for each M&M he/she took. He/she must stay with the task until he/she has described him/herself well. (If a student took many, you may want to limit his/her responses to ten.) Students may not express what they like, but rather what they are or what they are good at.

Another version: assign to each color of candy a specific characteristic for students to share. For example:

* Red: something that makes you mad.
* Green: a quality you have.
* Yellow: something about your spiritual side.
* Brown: something about your family.
* Orange: something you love to do.

Ice Breaker Activities

The value of get-acquainted activities is that they help group members get to know each other, begin to develop trust, and begin to risk by sharing information about themselves.

Story Telling

Storytelling is a technique that helps children to understand their own thoughts and feelings, and to communicate meaningful insights, values, and standards for their behavior. The counselor plays an important role in setting up the story. The child is asked to tell a story (the story can be recorded for details) with a beginning, middle and end. After the child tells the story, the counselor then prepares a similar story using related details, settings, themes, and figures from the child's story. The counselor's story should provide the child with better alternatives and/or responses to the situations of the original story.

Incomplete Sentences

Ask the student to complete these sentences:

• The thing I like to do most is________?
• The person in my family who helps me most is ________?
• My friends are ______?
• I feel happiest or saddest when _______?
• My greatest wish is ______?
• The greatest thing that ever happened to me was _______?
• I wish my parents would ______?
• When I grow up, I want ______?
• Brothers are _______?
• Sisters are _______?
• Dad is _______?
• Mom is _______?
• School is ________?
• My teacher is _______?

Free Association

The rule to Psychoanalytic counseling requires that the student will tell the counselor whatever thought and feelings come into their minds, regardless of how personal, painful, or even irrelevant. Free association does just that. The child will be allowed to talk about anything that is on his mind without being judged or criticized.

Biblio-Counseling

Bibliocounseling is reading and discussing books about situations that are similar to what the child is going through. Doing this can really help the child in several ways. Some children have difficulty in verbalizing their thoughts and feelings; bibliocounseling provides an opportunity for children to relate their own problems to situations in a book. The goals of bibliocounseling are to:

• teach constructive and positive thinking
• encourage free expressions of concerned problems
• help children evaluate their attitudes and behaviors
• look for alternative solutions
• encourage children to find ways to cope positively in society
• allow children to see the similarities of their problems to others

Reality Techniques

Glasser believed that most behavior is a response to an external signal (things that occur around us). He believed that a single person could make people to do whatever it is he/she wanted even if the people do not want to do it. He also believed that people let other people control how they think, act, and feel. And then place blame. Reality therapy is based on choice. Therefore the student must exam and focuses on his/her belief system. Treatment will occur when the student makes changes and strategies. One of those changes must be that the student realizes that he/she can not change others.

Steps

To begin the process of reality therapy, behavior is viewed as a choice and certain steps will occur:

1. Build a good relationship with the student.
2. Have students describe their present behavior.
3. Have students evaluate what their life is like and what they are doing to help themselves. Make a list of what has helped and what hasn't.
4. Together look for possible alternatives for getting what is wanted out of life. And put them in writing.
5. The student will then have to make a commitment to try the alternatives.
6. Then together examine the results of the commitments.
7. Use attainable and clear alternatives so the consequences are logical.
8. Be persevering and sincere when assisting the student who is determined to destroy his/her self-esteem.

Questions Asked

Questions to ask in the interview process of using Reality Therapy.

• What are you doing?
• Is what you are doing helping you get what you want?
• If not, what might be some other things you could try?
• Which idea would you like to try first?
• When would you like to try?

Sailing Through The Storm

Description of the Lesson or Program

"Sailing Through The Storm To The Ocean Of Peace," is a classroom guidance lesson developed by Cheryl Biegler, along with other Lakeville area elementary counselors, to assist elementary students (grades 2-3) in identifying different kinds of violence/bullying and the feelings that often accompany violence/bullying. Students also learn methods to cope with and resolve violent situations.

The lesson is to be delivered during two 30 minute periods. The materials needed for this lesson are the text "Sailing Through The Storm To The Ocean Of Peace," by Edie Julik, one piece of construction paper for each student, and crayons or markers for the students to use.

Initially, the terms bullying and violence are defined in class. The class then discusses positive reactions to both bullying and violence, what makes people want to hurt others, and finally, the connection between anger and violence. A counselor or teacher then reads aloud "Sailing Through The Storm To The Ocean Of Peace."

After reading the book in class, the students are asked several discussion questions. Here are some examples:
What does the word violence mean to you?
Do you ever get angry?
Is anger O.K.?
How do you feel when someone hurts you?
What can you do if someone is really mean to you?
Have you ever hurt someone and been sorry later? What happened?
How could you get trapped in a storm of violence?
What do you think lifesavers are?
Where is your ocean of peace?

After a lengthy classroom discussion, the students are asked to create their own sail boat picture on the provided construction paper. This is their homework assignment for the next guidance class period. The students must be prepared to describe their sail boat and their own personal ocean of peace and how they use it in their lives. The students can either share their sail boats in groups or may share individually to the class. The sail boats are then posted in the school hall way during Violence Prevention month.

Connections to Related Standards, Competencies, and Domains

The "Sailing Through The Storm" lesson is directly related to the Personal/Social and Educational domains of the Minnesota School Counselors' Model of Developmental Guidance and Counseling. The lesson focuses on violence/bullying that children in grades 1-3 may experience. Through reading the text and a classroom discussion, the students learn appropriate coping methods and ways to resolve situations involving violence/bullying. Students may also gain confidence and acceptance after sharing their own sail boats and may gain empathy for other students and their stories.

By delivering this lesson during Violence Prevention month, the students have the opportunity to become more aware of this social problem and how they can help prevent it in their own lives. After completing this lesson, students can define terms such as, anger, violence, bullying, coping, and prevention.

Empty Lizzie

Empty Lizzie is a lesson found in Project Charlie's Peaceful Partners Curriculum for elementary students. This lesson is designed to help students identify levels of anger intensity, to explain what anger looks like, feels like and sounds like, and to identify steps that can be used to deal with anger. The lesson take approximately 30 minutes to teach. Materials used for the lesson include an overhead transparency of an anger thermometer, the "Empty Lizzie" story, and paper for each student. The story and transparencies can be found in Project Charlie. See references for an address, phone number, and web site.

The lesson begins by reading the story to the class. Let the students know that you will be asking them to recall the events of Lizzie’s day. After reading the story, put the anger thermometer on the overhead projector and ask the student to trace the events of Lizzie’s day by drawing a red line up the thermometer.

Ask the students to think of a time that they were angry. Ask a couple of volunteers to share their answers. Pass out the paper and explain that the student will be drawing about their anger. Instruct them to draw a Y on the paper dividing it into three parts. Draw the Y on the board, writing in the spaces- "looks like," "sounds like," and "feels like." Explain that in the spaces they should draw how their anger looks, sounds, and feels accordingly. Encourage them to use to use their imagination since we cannot really "see" feelings. If they need examples; some ideas fourth grade students from Franklin Elementary have come up with are a Band-Aid for feels like, cars crashing for sounds like, and a monster for looks like. The students can then share their ideas.

To conclude the lesson, ask students to discuss positive ways to deal with anger and ways to "cool-down". Ask them to create a poster listing ideas for ways to manage anger. Discuss the ideas and how to choose an appropriate response for different situations. For example, listening to music is a good idea for at home, but will not work at school.

Solution-Focused Techniques

Solution-focused was popularized by Milton Erickson and focuses on finding solutions to the problems rather than dwelling on the problem.

Main Components

1. The counselor must develop a working alliance with students to help solve and understand the problem.
2. Identify students' strengths and build on upon them to develop self-esteem and confidence. This will help the student want to make positive changes.
3. Implement an eclectic variety of counseling strategies and techniques to help students achieve their goals.
4. Work with students' current problem and help them set clear and measurable goals. Evaluate progress often.

Make sure that goals are co-created and agreed upon by the student. When the student makes goals, he or she will take ownership. Make sure behavioral goals are made because they can be broken down into small steps. When writing the goal, state what behavior will occur, how often, and under what conditions.

Miracle Question:

"Should a miracle occur this evening while you are sleeping and when you woke up, you suddenly realized that your dilemma was solved, what would have occurred to indicate that the miracle actually happened?"

Steps

Structure the counseling session:

• Ask students what they want to get out of counseling
• Actively listen to help clarify the students' goals, situations, feelings, and expectations
• Talk about negative goals
• Set positive goals
• Ask the miracle question
• Ask relationship questions
• Reinforce goals and be positive about circumstances
• Have students draw pictures of their goals
• Ask students to rate on a scale 1-10 how they feel about their situations
• Give compliments frequently, verbally and through writing

Guidance Counseling

Guidance Counseling tips

Secondary Education

Secondary Education 7th -12th grade

Elementary Education

Kindergarten through 6th grade