First Week & Schedule

Whew! I am exhausted.  I started my weekend before the first week of school with a major kidney infection.  Yay!  Seriously though, I kept a positive attitude because so much was going on.

I shadowed the principal the first day.  We spent the morning greeting students and parents and directing traffic (my morning duty from 7:50-8:00).  Then, we went in and out of classrooms saying hi to students.  Lunch period (11-12:40), I walked around the lunchroom talking to students and introducing myself.  I met with some of our students with special needs and organized 504 folders.

Today was another busy day.  The principal and I met with every grade level during their specials to talk about the new programs we are putting in place.  I also found out the large number of 504s and 6th grade ARDs I have.  So many going on in the first 6 weeks.

The rest of this week is going to be extremely crazy busy, but I am ready.  I attached a copy of my schedule, so you can have an idea of what I have posted on my board as well as on my website each week.  This is the same format my school counselor mentor used last year and I loved it! It was so nice for the students to be able to see if they had a group, individual session, or guidance lesson with their class. ( I blacked out teachers names and students initials for the internet)

CounselorSchedule

Do you have a schedule you use?

My Counseling Room- 2013-14

I posted a sneak peek here earlier this summer.  Well, this morning I made a video tour of the room and completely forgot to ask Colton (my husband) to take photos.  These are camera photos and they will have to do.  I am so happy with how everything turned out.  I reposted the before pics so you won't have to go back and forth.  

View looking right from the front door:

Before

After (large group area)

Directly to the left of the door (remember, it was a science lab):

Before

After (still need to add more to the doors & make the counter pretty)

Just past the sinks...

Before (All of the science stuff blocking everything)

After: Play therapy area & sand tray

Directly against the back wall 

Before (I wish I would have got a picture of the whole wall, but the bookcase was surrounded by 3 metal cabinets..

After (no more metal cabinets!!)

Front Wall

Before

After: Character words along top border

 More photos:

Another view from front door

Close-up of bean bag area (grey canvas bag is full of stuffed animals)

Large group area & supplies

LOVE my supply area!

Sorry for the bad quality photos.  It doesn't do the room justice.  I am so excited about the progress I've made in it.  I have several more bulletin boards to finish, but this is what it will look like Monday morning!  Throughout the years, it will just get better and better.  

Character Corner for teachers

I have been working on creating something fun for students and teachers to build character awareness.  I will post more about the student one later, but this post is about the teachers.

At my previous school we had this awesome board in the hallway near the teachers lounge where teachers could write little notes about another teacher.  Each month our awesome counselor would take the notes down, put them in a bucket, draw a few names, read their note out loud (Ms. Smith, thank you for helping me out when you saw I was stressed...) and give them prizes.  Then, she would attach chocolate to the backs of them and give them to the teachers so they could hold on to the notes.

I loved this idea and knew I wanted to incorporate it at my new school.  Since we will now have monthly character traits, I decided we could make the trait the theme for that month and write down when we catch a teacher exemplifying that theme.  Aug/Sept is responsibility and the amazing teachers and staff at my school have already started posting.  They are so responsible. ;)

I set our character corner up in our mailroom so the teachers can fill up the cabinets with the cutouts.  We have the cutouts, pens, and tape all accessible so they don't have to look for supplies.  I will use different cutouts for each month and I already have the character traits ready to go and trade out.  

Coming up soon:  Photos of my room.  I have some on my phone, but I would love for my husband to take some better ones when we are at the school tomorrow to make my room tour video.

Book dividers

My room & office are coming together.  I still have so much to do, but I am hoping I can get most of it done while I am on campus the next two days.

Hopefully I will have some more pictures and things for you this weekend, but I wanted to give a quick update.  I have quite a few books and I wanted to create dividers so I could easily access them for lessons and/or teachers.  I printed these front and back, cut and laminated them.  I am really excited with how they look.  Best part, they match my labels for my storage bins!

What do you use for your book dividers?  Did you make something?  Do you use buckets?  I would love to see/hear about it.

Confidentiality Freebie

Well, if you can't already tell, I am loving mint green chevron.  It is all over my room!  I created this confidentiality poster to hang in my room & I'm sharing it with you.

Confidentiality

Chevron background from The Darling Blog.  Fonts used My First Crush (dafont) & Tangerine.

Classroom/Office Update

It has been a few days since I've posed because I have been getting everything ready for the beginning of the year.  I cannot believe it is already so close.  My contract is signed, keys are in my hand, and my room is coming together!  I wanted to share several updates with you.  You can see before pictures here.

I have my where is Mrs. Bradshaw sign and spinner posted by my door.  Click here to see how I made it.  

I created my very own BE yourself collage.  Thank you Susan at Entirely Elementary!  This little collage is everywhere in the school counseling world, and now I have one at my school. 

My referral notepads came in today and I could not be more excited!! They turned out wonderful! Click here to see more about them.

I covered up the collages (most of them) with fabric and added my border (Can you tell my theme & colors yet?).  I found several cute posters I added too.  Not sure what I am going to do with the bulletin board, but I love the colors. :)

I ordered several more Julia Cook books and bought Max (I believe I read about this on ASCA Scene) and a little liquid timer.  

Stay tuned for more lessons & some freebies.