Celebrating the Military Child

Collaborating with our MFLC personnel here at HCES is a joy!  They are wonderful with our kiddos and have excellent ideas on how we can celebrate the children and their sacrifices as military children. Below are some photos of our main hallway loaded with student decorated dog tags that represent their unique personalities.  

Eagles Respect

One of the many character traits that our school emphasizes is respect.  Here at HCES, we say eagles respect.  This is one of the plethora of PBIS approaches we take when getting the students attention during morning meeting, in the cafeteria, and any other place in the school.  We simply say "eagles and the students respond with respect".  I am very proud of our kiddos this year, they have grown so much with good character, especially in the area of respect.  Below are a few pictures of displays that the PBIS team has worked on to promote character education at our school.  

April is the Month of the Military Child

As April quickly approaches, I would like to take a moment to remember not only the men and women who serve our country, but also their children.  Military children serve along side their parents all over the world, are resilient, and make many sacrifices.  My wish is that all military children will know that they are appreciated and loved by our school faculty and staff!  

Kelso's Choices is one of my favorite, quick, and easy resources to share with my kiddos!  I have really enjoyed empowering my students with the knowledge of problem solving small problems.  Kelso has several choices that you can choose from when you have a small problem.  The kids love his character as a frog and best of all, the problem solving wheel leads right into "I Messages".  I Messages are verbal expressions of your feelings starting your statement to the other person with I.  An example would be " I feel uncomfortable when you do not include me in the group" or "I like the way you include me in the group". Encouraging I Messages at home are a great way to help your child learn how to express themselves in a healthy way! Below is a Youtube link that I found on Kelso's Choices featuring the cartoon character Kelso and real life situations that the kids can relate to on a daily basis. 

School Attendance

Why is school attendance important?  In order to learn all of the skills for each grade level, we must be in attendance to receive the lessons prepared to teach us!  There is a direct correlation between school attendance and academic success.  If you are not feeling well stay at home otherwise, please be at school. I hope you enjoy this cute video I found on YouTube to help our kiddos understand the importance of school attendance. 

Anti Bullying Video for Primary Grades

My kiddos loved watching this short video on Anti Bullying!  McGruff the Crime dog maybe an old character but, he is still very exciting to primary kiddos!  I love the "stop, talk, and walk" steps he talks about to stop bullying.  I feel this video really empowers kiddos to try and help themselves and others before going to an adult. It's always important to remind them of the differences of big problems and small problems, so they know when to stop, walk, and tell an adult.    

Great Parenting Resource

Parenting resources are something that we all can use! If you need a little help with a child that needs extra guidance, is difficult at times, or just needs healthy boundaries, read Parenting with Love and Logic! This is a great resource that will cover so many issues that we as parents face each day when trying to raise a healthy child. 

PBIS TEAM

This year, I had the privilege to start a PBIS Team!  The Positive Behavior Intervention Strategies Team works on a variety of projects throughout the school.  We support the morning meeting by providing MC's for the daily meeting, our Power Point group creates the slide show daily, our Bulletin Board and Banner group provides inviting PBIS based displays for the school.  All of these subgroups create one large PBIS team.  This team allows kiddos from the fifth grade to be character leaders for the school, provides them with a purpose, and enhances our school climate.  Overall, the PBIS Student Team is a great idea that would work at any school!  If you are interested in learning about PBIS approaches, visit the website www.pbis.org. 

Here are a few of the bulletin Board Designs the PBIS Bulletin Board Team Created!

Bulletin Boards with a Purpose

Bulletin Boards are a great way to connect with our kiddos!  I love creating bulletin boards that not only address the CCR Standards but also are interactive.  This bulletin board was created to highlight Kelso's Choices, a wonderful program that empowers kiddos to solve their own little problems (play doh problems) and seek help from an adult for big problems (rock problems).  I simply displayed the Kelso's Choices poster that is posted on all playgrounds used as a "work it out space".  Then, I used student writing that shared what they felt were small problems and big problems.  The most exciting part of the bulletin board is the note that invites the kiddos to leave a question for Kelso that maybe answered during our daily school wide morning meeting.  You can see I attached several pens, so the students could write directly on the bulletin board.  Of course, my last touch was the College and Career Readiness Standards that the board covered.  Incorporating the standards across all areas of the curriculum is possible and exciting to highlight especially in the area of counseling.  Did I mention that my PBIS Team helped create and put up this bulletin board for me !!! :-)

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.