The single best tip I have gotten this year.

 I want to share a tip that our counseling supervisor shared with me this year. It has to be one of the single best tips I have gotten this year! Often when students are angry, frustrated, mad, upset, struggling we say "Do you need help?" and then probably follow up it with a little talk that goes something like :

Teacher: "When you need help you need to ask an adult for help. I can't help you when you get upset, you need to use your words and calm down."
Student: cries get louder
Teacher: "Use your words. What do you say when you are upset?"

 Well as my supervisor pointed out many of our students don't have the maturity or skills to do this yet. When we ask them if they want help we are teaching them that if they get frustrated enough and melt down, then someone will step in and help. So instead of asking when the student gets upset just look at them and say "I need help." That's it. Model the words you want them to use.

Sounds crazy right, well I tried it out this week. I was working with a student that just won't complete any work. I could see he was getting frustrated so I said " I need help."  He looked at me puzzled so I continued "I would be glad to help you....." We did a problem together and I let him continue alone. A little while later I could see that same look so I said "I need help" and we repeated the scenario. As if on cue (seriously it was straight out of a training video) another girl walked up and said "Ms. Filtness can you help me?" I went above and beyond with the "Yes_____ I would LOVE to help you. Thanks for asking for help." You would have thought she won the lottery. About two minutes later my student looked and me and said "I need help." I almost fainted with excitement. He got it!

I shared this strategy with another teacher who has a student that melts down. We are creating a cool down area for him and I suggested when he got upset to just say "I need to go to my cool down spot." Today he melted she used the cue and I am happy to report he pouted right over to his spot. I'll blog more on this later, but I had to share this tip!

Saw this on FB and fell in love. Had to share.

Happy National School Counseling Week

It's National School Counseling Week!!Yay!!!

This year I decided I had to celebrate and advocate for my program (and all of you). So here is my week, what are you doing?

Monday:

Announcement:* 

This month’s Top Dog word is courage. Courage means being brave and meeting a challenge without giving in to fear.This week is National School Counseling week! Do you know about all of the special things school counselors do? Counselors help students face their fears and encourage students to be brave every day.

This week to celebrate National School Counseling week Ms. Filtness is hosting a trivia challenge. Each day we will read a trivia question about Ms. Filtness and her program. If you think you know the answer write the answer, your full name, and teachers name on a piece of paper and turn it in to Ms. Filtness by lunch. Winners will be announced at the end of the day. 

Dirty Dog

Brooklyn's First Bath!

This week I did a lesson with K on keeping clean and staying healthy. It seemed appropriate after I was out a week with the flu =/

She still isn't a fan

First, as an introducation we watched "Harry the Dirty Dog" via http://www.storylineonline.net/. I have really enjoyed finding dog stories to tie into my lessons and add to my brand. This is an adorable story, but it's read by my personal hero Betty White, so I don't mind watching it over and over again.

There is a related activities section and activity guide for each book, but I didn't use them. Instead we used it as an introduction to talk about the importance of being clean. We brainstormed why we thought it was important to keep clean.

Blue Ribbon Blogs

As much as I love blogging, I love reading a good blog.
I have shared my favorites before, but I wanted to highlight some of my favorites today.

First, unless you live under a rock or this is your first visit to my page I adore animals, especially the snuggly, lovable, kissable Pit Bulls. One of the best parts of 2012 for me was volunteering with NashvillePITTIE, which combines my love of education and dogs.

Blue Ribbon Books for Top Dogs

Every month I ask the teacher's to help me pick a "Top Dog," based on the character education word of  the month. (Read more about my character ed program here!)

Since I get to visit the classrooms once a month (if I am lucky) and often those lessons are dictated by teacher requests and student needs, I have been pondering ways to get the teachers to incorporate my words into their lessons and reach all of my students.

Show Off Your Goals

One of my new favorite things about the New Year so far is all of my friends that are starting blogs or making a resolution to write more ;)

For example, if you love dogs you have to follow/add to your Google Reader: http://nashvillepittie.blogspot.com/

One of my dear work friends, who is a true inspiration for health and fitness, has a wonderful blog:

mendingbodyandsoul

Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants. Run. Not too hard. Pray A lot.

New Year, New Resolutions

YOU MUST READ: http://pittiesincity.blogspot.com/

Thanks to one of my favorite new blogs, http://www.thirtyhandmadedays.com/, Pinterest I found this adorable worksheet for students to reflect on the previous year and plan for 2013!

So, I had my kids in 4th-5th grade fill one out today and we made a super bulletin in the hallway to share.

Happy 2013!

Our festive dog!

I used the cards to spell out the date.

I still have more cards to add!

Some answers were super sweet. Greatest lesson learned "Love is above all." LOVE my kids.

Some were thoughtful and heartbreaking. "Hardest thing about the year: losing my dad" wrote one 4th grade student who lost her father this year.

My attempt at making blue dog festive.

Responsible Communication

I saw this on Facebook and just had to share. Way to go!!

Greg Hoffman is a kid who just got an iPhone from his parents. His mom, Janell Hoffman, wrote these [slightly edited] rules for its use: