Social Stories are a wonderful way to help kiddos with basic social skills such as getting along, conflict resolution, friendships, school rules, accepting authority, relating to peers, and interpersonal skills.  The new Social Story Book is a great resource that helps me with small groups and individuals that may need just a little extra help with social skills.  

Working with Sure Start kiddos is always fun, exciting, and definitely calls for some differentiation to be developmentally appropriate. They tend to enjoy books that I read to K-1, but just don't quite have the ability to sit through the whole story.  So, I went through the book and paper clipped some of the pages together that I could easily skip and keep the story flowing and it worked perfectly. I also introduced them to a rain stick that I bought on a trip to the Bahamas. We talked about the rain stick, what it sounded like, what it was made of, and how it worked. I wanted to make the rain stick very interesting, exciting, and the discussion definitely worked!  So, when I got to the part where I shared that the only person that could talk was the person with the special rain stick, it worked like magic! Now, we had to talk about what to do with our important words that we wanted to share while waiting for the other person to finish talking or the teacher to call on us.  We practiced by holding our teeth together, breathing in/taking our words back up to our heads from our tongues, holding them there, then speaking/breathing the words out when it was our turn to talk. The boys and girls met my challenge and were self monitoring and the interruptions were less and less as our lesson went on.  I wanted this to follow over into the classroom, so I shared the rain stick with their teacher and she is reiterating the skill.  This is a great way to teach kiddos how to control their words, not interrupt, be respectful, self monitor, and most of all let the kiddos know that all of their words are important to me.

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving Break!  I am starting new small groups in Second Grade and Sure Start this week.  Small group counseling is designed to be preventative and developmental in nature.  We focus on coping strategies needed to be successful in the school environment, friendship skills, communication, anger management, basic rituals and routines, and much more.  Each group is developed specifically to meet the needs of the learners at that moment and time. A few standards that I use are:

Standard A Improve Academic School Success:
-Taking Responsibility for our actions.
-Use communication skills to know when and how to ask for help when needed.

Standard A Acquire Self Knowledge
-Recognize that everyone has rights and responsibilities.
-Respect alternative points of view.
-Recognize, accept, respect, and appreciate individual differences.
-Learn how to make and keep friends.

Standard B Self-Knowledge Applications
-Understand consequences of decisions and choices
-Identify alternative solutions to a problem.
-Know how to apply conflict resolution skills.
-Demonstrate when, where, and how to seek help for solving problems and making decisions.

I use a variety of resources in whole group, small group, and individual counseling times.  The following are a few that I have had the joy of sharing with my kiddos:

Bibliotherapy: 

My favorite book, Have you Filled a Bucket Today? A Guide to Daily Happiness for Kids.  I use this book every year for all my grade levels.  This book covers feelings, self help, bullying, and much more.  If you really want kiddos to understand the saying "treat others the way you want to be treated", read this book!

My Mouth is a Volcano-I can teach across the curriculum with this lesson incorporating math and science as well as the social skill "interrupting".  

Personal Space Camp-This book covers so much!  It talks about keeping your hands and feet safe, respecting others, spacial awareness, and much more.  Again, I can teach across the curriculum incorporating math by using examples such as use the perimeter of the square on the carpet that you are sitting on as your personal boundary. It also is easy to incorporate science since the theme of the story is Personal Space Camp.  The kids love the way the main character Louis thinks he is going to space to learn!





Every school year, we have to teach our kiddos what play doh and rock problems are. One of the play doh problems we have to talk about are tattles.  This book is a great example of taking a small problem and making it a big problem by squealing every time someone does or says something.








Playground Expectations are part of the beginning of the year every year.  In order to equip our kiddos with the tools to help themselves self monitor and problem solve, I share with them "Kelso's Choices"  Kelso is a very special frog that has 9 ways that you can choose from to problem solve.  Kelso always solves problems with one of the tools in his belt!  This simple poster empowers kiddos to help themselves and others in times of conflict.