School Counselor Blog

Yesterday was my first opportunity to try a new car tech gadget ! My school counselor colleague, Natasha, recently introduced me to a tech item for my car of which I was not aware! Gasp! She gave me a demo of her Motorola wireless bluetooth FM-transmitter/Speakerphone  that plays through your car speakers. How I listened I purchased this Motorola T505 Portable In-Car Speakerphone in time for a trip I took yesterday. It rocks! My only regret is that I wish I would have purchased it as soon as she showed me hers... The  Motorola T505 Portable In-Car Speakerphone  is awesome! The device allows you to play music and podcasts on your bluetooth enabled smartphone through your car's radio. The device is a speakerphone so you can make and receive calls through your speakers. The device pauses your music and resumes when the call ends! What I listened to I was so excited to be able to listen to  American School Counselor Association ASCAway podcasts  in ...

My fifth grade self-esteem group ended with a bang today!  Students left group empowered and booming with self-esteem! I used  Firework  to start a dialog about being proud of who you are and being true to yourself. I played Firework for students on my iPhone using my portable speaker . I gave them all a copy of the lyrics and asked them to pay careful attention to the words as the song was playing. Afterwards Firework  was over, we discussed the song and it's meaning. I asked students if there were any parts of the song that stuck out to them. One student stated that  "a paper bag drifting through the wind" feels "lonely and left out." Another student stated that "a house of cards one blow from caving in" would be easily "put down" or "pushed down." Students spoke of times when they felt down or when they felt like the did not have any friends. Students were eager to come up with a message of what the song meant to the...

For the past couple of weeks I have been searching all over my office for a specific counseling activity worksheet. As I was packing up my office, I finally found the worksheet amid a myriad of career lesson plans (not where it was supposed to be!). The worksheet is titled, "Soundtrack of Your Life."   The worksheet was given to me in a graduate course by a fellow colleague. The purpose of "Soundtrack of Your Life" is for students to identify songs that describe or relate to aspects of their lives. I modified it from its original version to make it geared to middle school students. Some of the tracks on "Soundtrack of Your Life" are "Opening Scene," "School Experience," "Friends," and "When I Get Older." "Soundtrack of Your Life" could be utilized in many different ways.  I used "Soundtrack of Your Life" with a student this past week. The student had a lot of fun completing the works...

Each week I will be selecting an item for Fabulous Find Friday. This Friday's Fabulous Find is Grooveshark . Grooveshark is a free MP3 streaming and Internet Radio website. Members can search for MP3s and listen to them live.  Members can create playlists, get recommendations, and share their favorites with others. To learn more about the features of Grooveshark go to Grooveshark Help . (Membership is FREE!) Grooveshark is easy to use. After you search for songs, hit the plus sign near the song to add it to your collection. You can then create a playlist and drag songs into the playlist. This week's Fabulous Find was inspired by a counseling activity: "Soundtrack of Your Life. " I wanted to find a cost-effective way for students to make a playlist using their  "Soundtrack of Your Life. " Grooveshark was the answer! Using Grooveshark , members can create a playlist and play it online.  The playlist can then be shared with others through email or b...

Each week I will be selecting an item for Fabulous Find Friday. If you have a suggestion for a Fabulous Find,  email me  and I will try it out! Your Fabulous Find may be Featured on a Future Friday! ;) This Friday's Fabulous Find is the  Altec Lansing iM-237 Orbit Ultraportable Speaker . I decided to feature the  Altec Lansing iM-237 Orbit Ultraportable Speaker  as a fabulous find this week after receiving many questions and comments about  the speaker I used  during my presentation at the Pennsylvania School Counselor's Association (PSCA)  Conference on " Social Networking for School Counselors. "  The  Altec Lansing iM-237 Orbit Ultraportable Speaker  is definitely fabulous! I have used the  Altec Lansing Speaker  during individual sessions, group sessions, classroom lessons, and presentations. The  Altec Lansing Speaker  plugs into a headphone jack on most electronic devices.  The  Al...

This is the extension of the The Colors of Us Revisited lesson using the book The Colors of Us by Karen Katz. At the beginning of the next class, We listed to the Jack Johnson song "My Own Two Hands. " We spoke about things that the students could do with their own two hands to change the world. After listening to "My Own Two Hands," the students were instructed to use the sheet of their own unique color to trace their hand print. After they traced their hands, they cut them out. The students were instructed to decorate their hands using crayola construction paper crayons. They could either draw pictures on their hands of their favorite things or make a design. The students then pasted their hands to a circle with a picture of the world in the center. I went around to each student and asked what they could do to change the world with their own two hands. We used the suggestions that the students came up with as a background for the bulletin board. Som...

I am facilitating character education with kindergarten through fourth grade. I have a variety of themes I am touching on in the classes. For friendship, I worked with third and fourth grade to create their own "friendship raps." Before creating their raps, I had each class listen a rap "Something for Me, Something for You," found on the CD in the Teaching Tolerance "I Will be Your Friend" educator kit. The students really enjoyed the rap. After listening to the rap, I had the students talk about what they learned from the rap. They learned messages such as "you should respect people," "we should be friends with people, it doesn't matter what color we are," and "you should include other people." I then instructed the students to each come up with a line to make a unique friendship rap as a class. The students were very enthusiastic and came up with some great lines. I had each student raise his or her hand and sha...