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As counselors...of course, we love counseling but there are so many other aspects of our job as school counselors. I think we have to be the biggest advocate for school counselors by our actions, words, and attitude. The past two weeks, I have witnessed great speeches and great staff developments. I have been blessed in every district I have ever been in and this new one is no different. In convocation, we heard from Dr. John Draper and he said we have to market our district, school, and profession. When we make comments about how we don't like doing this part of our job but we love doing this part...we really aren't marketing our job as counselors. Now, are there things I don't prefer as much as other things?? Yes... but I know that BOTH parts make up my job! In schools, we can't just show that we are counselors who provide guidance, individual and group counseling but we have to show that, yes, we do schedules and support teachers and meet with parents and do LOTS of paperwork!! It shows accountability for us! I try to be positive and save any "venting" for a close friend or my husband because I want to advertise my profession and show the people in my school that I keep going and I am there to support our students and staff every day with a smile!! !
Sorry, y'all! I was just feeling so passionate about that today because I think sometimes we do a disservice to ourselves when we have a negative attitude. There are already sooo many people who don't understand the importance of school counselors and I want to show them we are the heartbeat of the school!!
So...I have been missing lately because I have been doing schedules which has made me realize how stinkin' important us counselors are at the beginning of the year (see that advertising)??? Haha!
We also went to Meet the Teacher night for our first, sweet baby who is going to Kindergarten. Oh my word, Monday will be super tough....I better wear water proof mascara!
Now on to counseling!!!! I attended an absolutely fabulous counseling staff development and can I say that our district Guidance Director is amazing!!??? Ms. West is so stinkin' cute and shared with us such a neat intro activity. First, she showed us this video clip from the movie " How Do You Know"? (After seeing the clip, I rented the movie and it was pretty cute).
This got me thinking about play dough and all the great uses in counseling. I especially thought about doing a similar activity in possibly a self esteem small group and having students describe how they feel about themselves and what they would want to change, what they can and can't change and possibly creating something with the play dough (maybe how they think they look, how they think others thing they look, etc). I hope to create a Small Group Counseling activity book in my TPT store pretty soon, so be on the lookout for that!!!
I also wanted to share an exciting Dollar Tree find!! I tried one of these wall stick ons and they had a lot of good counseling-type quotes there. I picked this one out to see how it would work and it was easy to put up and you can't beat a $1!!! I added it to my Believe. Dream. Achieve printables which you can also find HERE for free!!!
In other news...we are just waiting to see if the contract and everything else will go through on our current house and then we will start building!! We are just praying and seeing what happens. But here is a picture of where we will start building if everything works out!!
Our students start tomorrow so I have enjoyed this last weekend before school REALLY starts with a wild manicure, shopping with my sweet family, and prepping for our sweet boy's first day of Kindergarten!!
