A Bad Case of Tattle Tongue

It has been a very busy couple of weeks with benchmark testing two weeks ago and lessons in the classrooms, small groups, individual sessions, Student Council meetings, No Place for Hate meetings, etc., etc. Last week I got to get back in the classrooms after helping with testing the previous week and was able to get to the K-2nd grade classrooms. I will finish up with Pre-K this week and start a new lesson with 3rd-5th grades! We had a very important, much needed lesson in our lower grades...tattling!!! Our little ones are still learning how to solve their own problems instead of running to an adult for every small problem they have, which is a hard lesson for some of them to learn! It's great that they feel like they can trust their teachers and parents to help them solve their problems, but they also have to learn to solve them on their own. To help them learn more about this, we read a fun fiction story called, A Bad Case of Tattle Tongue by Julia Cook.

In the story, Josh has a real problem with tattling and tattles on every single thing. His friends even start to get tired of it and he ends up not having many friends. The "Tattle Prince" ends up helping Josh learn the difference between telling someone something that is dangerous and that could hurt someone, and something that is a small issue he can fix on his own. An example of a small problem would be if someone took his pencil. Before going to an adult, he could ask for it back, share it, get another pencil and ignore it, talk it out with the person, etc. An example of a dangerous problem that would not be considered tattling would be when he overheard another student say he was going to beat up another student. That is an example of something he should tell an adult immediately. Here are the "Tattle Rules" we learned about.

         

Please help with the consistency of not tattling at school by encouraging your children to not tattle at home and to learn how to solve their own problems. Kelso's Choices is a great tool to help them learn how to solve their own problems and if you simply say to them, "Try one of Kelso's Choices," they should know just what to do. You can look at my previous blog for a refresher on what this is. Of course they need to know when it is okay to tell and we definitely went over that, too, and completed a sheet that let them figure out which scenarios were dangerous and which ones were not. Starting to learn how to solve their own problems now will help them greatly in the future when they are trying to work with their peers; even when they are adults. ;-) 

Kelso's Choices and Feeling Appreciated

Last week and this week I have been in all classrooms PK-5 and we have gone over conflict-resolution. As you can imagine with most classes having 20+ different little personalities, there might be some conflict once and a while! ;-) We kick started the lesson by watching a fun little clip that explains what conflict is in an easy and entertaining way!

After this we went over Kelso's Choice, which helps kids identify different ways they can solve problems, depending on what the problem is. We talked about how important it is to learn how to solve our own problems, without having to always go straight to the teacher or parent, because we will need to problem solve our whole lives. We went over Kelso's rule of trying at least two choices from the wheel before going to an adult for help with it. If they try two and are still having issues, then they can go to an adult. We also made sure to discuss that if the problem is a BIG problem or an emergency needing immediate attention, they of course don't have to try the choices first and can go straight to an adult.

We also practiced using "I Messages":

                                         

                                   
Students were able to role play these messages with a partner, or using puppets for some of the younger grades. The upper grades were given cards with different scenarios involving different types of conflict on them to work out with a partner. We then finished up by watching a fun song that Kelso himself sings to them:

I also had a wonderful week last week because of School Counselor Appreciation Week! I sure work with an amazing staff and the best students ever at OHE because they all made me feel so appreciated!! I was showered with sweet notes, flowers, candy, a very touching banner, gifts, lunch, breakfast, etc.

Thank you SO much to all those who made me feel special last week! I absolutely love my job as a school counselor and love OHE! There is no better place for me to be! :-)

Magical Feelings and No Name Calling Week

This week in kinder and 1st grade, we got to make some magic happen with The Magic Coloring Book of Feelings! The kids absolutely LOVE this lesson because they get to turn black and white pages on the book to colorful pages, by just "throwing" colors at the book while it's closed! After they have thrown their colors, I open the book and voila...it has gone from black and white to color in seconds!! They are always so shocked and you can hear all the ooos and ahhhs. Then I tell them to take the color away and the pages become completely blank! They end up "taking" the color and the pictures, so they have to put the pictures back. Finally, we end with making the book colorful once more! It really is so much fun to do this with them and they are so puzzled as to how it works, but I always tell them, "A good magician does not reveal their tricks!" ;-)

This week was also "No Name Calling Week"! No Place for Hate was promoting a week of kindness toward each other all week and I think we were successful. For more specifics on what we did each day, see my previous blog post from last week. Here are some pictures of our finished products the kids got to show off at our assembly this morning. 

We worked hard yesterday taping down ALL the compliments the WHOLE school wrote this week and made a really cool "Compliment Wall"! We also filled up our "Mean Words are Garbage" bag with mean words kids have said to each other because there is no place but the garbage for mean words! It's been a great, positive, and kind week! :-) 

Have a great weekend!!