Welcome Back to School

Welcome back, all returning students and parents; and welcome to OHE, new students and parents!! We are off to a great start this year and I am happy to return for my third year as school counselor here! I have now entered my 10th year in education!! Time goes so fast. This year I am excited to let everyone know that I will have a half-time counselor on my team! I am no longer on my lonely island as the only counselor. ;-) Our new half-time counselor is Mayra Rosales and she is great! We are very lucky to have her. She will be taking over with the guidance lessons and any individual/small group counseling referrals for dual language students/classes since she is bilingual.

Here is her picture, so you can put a name with a face!

Mayra Rosales, New OHE Half-Time Counselor

This week I have been busy with setting up schedules for my guidance lessons this year and going to some classes for my "introduction to counseling" lesson. I will give you more details about this lesson as I finish up with all my classes next week! 

I hope you all had a wonderful summer break and are happy to start another great school year at OHE! I was able to go to Puerto Rico this summer with two friends, so here's a little peek into my trip.

Have a great weekend!!! :-)

Motivation to Achieve

Who's ready for a three-day weekend?!? Me, me!!! ;-) I had a wonderful week here at school, this week, even though I am now ready for the weekend! This week I was in 4th and 5th grade classrooms for lessons and wrapped up lessons for the year! Can't believe we are already so near to the end! It was harder to say it was my last lesson for the year to 5th grade classes because they won't be back next year, but I know they will do so well in middle school and are excited for that big change. This week I gave a lesson on the motivation to achieve and reaching your goals. We started by watching a very inspiring video about a young man named Richie Parker who was born with no arms, but went on to achieve such amazing things. One of those things being working for Hendrick Motorsports, a company that does work for Nascar, as a vehicle engineer! He is pretty amazing and inspiring, but you can see for yourself.




I then had the students work on a sheet that had a ladder drawn on it and they were to write a life goal they have at the top of the ladder and write the steps it would take to achieve that goal on each step of the ladder until they reached the top, their goal. They then repeated this on the other side, which had another ladder for a school goal. It was very neat to see all the different goals they had! We had a great discussion about not giving up when you get frustrated or make a mistake, but to keep going and achieve all of your goals and dreams. Richie Parker did it with no arms, so we can do it, too!

Today was also an exciting day because my Hip Hop group performed their last performance for the school year! They got to perform in their pajamas for this one because the song was about not wanting to wake up from a good dream. We also shared a video before we began dancing sharing all of our hip hop kids' biggest dreams. They did such a great job and I can't wait to continue with Hip Hop next year and maybe see some new faces!

Serious pose...

...and of course they had to do a silly pose, too! 

I received some beautiful flowers from Pamela, a first grade student in Hip Hop and her mom, who is a custodian at our school, too!! So thoughtful and pretty! :-) 

I hope you all have a wonderful three-day, Memorial Day weekend!! 

Student Council Field Trip to Querencia Retirement Community and End of the Year Celebration

Last Friday Student Council got to have a truly great and meaningful experience by visiting the elderly at Querencia Retirement Community. The students were split up into three groups; two groups went to the assisted living building, while the other group went to the independent living building. I was with the group that visited assisted living and got to partake in some fun activities, such as bingo and balloon volleyball!!! The kids had so much fun doing this with the residents and were so kind in helping them to get the balloon or move their bingo pieces to the correct spot. It was really quite touching to see how they interacted and how nice it was for the residents to receive visitors, as many do not. They all really enjoyed their time there!!

Once we returned from our field trip to Querencia, we had a pizza party, courtesy of the Oak Hill Rotary Club! Students also received certificates for all their hard work on Student Council this year.

 

Our officers for the year were as follows: RyalJames Weldon-Carroll (President), Ridley Ott (Vice President), Caroline Latham (Secretary), and Raelen Espinosa (Treasurer). They each received a plaque along with their certificate!





It has been another great year with Student Council and they have done so much for the school!! I was happy to celebrate all of their accomplishments with them. Thank you to all of the parents who have helped volunteer in any way with Student Council this year, too!! Sometimes, it definitely takes a village!! :-)

Being a Good Sport, Counselor for the Day, and NPFH Celebration

It has been another busy week getting back to being in the classrooms for lessons, having a student be "Counselor for the Day" with me, and having a pizza party for my No Place for Hate (NPFH) kids!! This week I was in PK, kindergarten, and 1st grade classrooms. We watched "Howard B. Wigglebottom Learns About Sportsmanship: Winning Isn't Everything."

                                          

This is an important lesson for all children because they can get too wrapped up in who wins and who loses and lose sight of the fact that games are about having fun. We talked about what being a "good sport" and being "not a good sport" means and why people don't like to play games with those who aren't good sports. A good sport doesn't throw a fit every time they don't win, they don't brag and put down others, they pass the ball to their teammates, they congratulate the winning team, or say something like "good game" to a team that loses, etc.

After watching the video, we played a game where the students acted out different scenarios related to playing board games or sports on a team. They were to choose one scenario from one side of the bucket for me to read and they were to choose a card that would either say "good sport" or "not a good sport" from the other side of the bucket. If they chose "not a good sport" and a scenario that said they lost the game, they would act out something like yelling at the winning team and saying they must have cheated; or something along those lines. If they chose "good sport," they would say something like "Good game. We will try again next time!" Then, the audience each had their own set of "good sport" and "not a good sport" cards they would hold up to guess which one the actor/actress was acting out. They had a lot of fun with this and got to use the puppets while they acted! I will continue this lesson with 2nd and 3rd grade classes next week; slightly modifying it to their level.

In other fun news from the week, Olivia Greene from 3rd grade, Mrs. Grimm's class won the opportunity to be "Counselor for a Day" by winning the bid at our carnival's silent auction. She wants to possibly be a therapist for kids and adults one day, so this was perfect for her. She got to help me teach my guidance lessons all day, she helped me with a couple of "less private" counseling sessions that the clients consented to and even led her own counseling session for one of her friends who had been having issues with a friend. I was honestly amazed at how well she led that session and she gave her some pretty profound advice about a kid being mean to the client. One statement she made that stood out was, "Have you ever met someone who was mean and angry all the time on the outside, but happy on the inside? People who are always mean or angry usually have problems going on within themselves or at home." WOW!!! This all came from her own mouth without my help! We also got to go to Austin Pizza Garden for lunch together and she picked one friend, Emma Thornton, to come with us! She loved the badge I made her that looked just like mine! What a fun day and an awesome little girl to spend it with! 

Finally, I ended the week with a pizza party for my No Place for Hate coalition members! We celebrated all of our accomplishments throughout the year in helping to make our school environment one of acceptance, kindness, non-judgment, and one where there is no tolerance for hate. We should receive our official designation as a NPFH campus for the 2014-2015 school year in the next couple of weeks from the Anti-Defamation League and will receive a banner. 

They did a pretty good job polishing off a lot of pizza!!! I am surprised they left so much fruit behind! ;-)

Have a great weekend!!! :-)

Creative Outlets for Children Presentation Opportunity

STAAR Testing is DONE and Student Council

The major STAAR season is complete, besides just a few re-takes in May! We are so proud of our kiddos for working hard, staying focused, trying their best, and toughing out the last few days! We can all take a sigh of relief that testing is over for most kids! I can join them in that sigh of relief because in the last two days I finished packing up all the tests today, organizing all the materials, filling out all the forms, etc. and am ready to deliver the documents on Monday!! I still have a little work ahead in May with those who will need to re-take, but I am over the big hill and gleefully coming down! :-)

Today's assembly was bittersweet as we said goodbye to Dr. Mitchell, as she moves on to Gorzycki Middle School! We will miss her, but are also excited for her to get to start a new journey. Student Council got to announce to the school this morning about all the cool stuff we have gotten to purchase with all the money they have raised this year! They have worked so hard!! Last week I shared some pictures with you of the musical equipment we purchased and here are some pictures of the WOW equipment they purchased to play with outside and a new basketball goal for the younger kids to reach, so they can play basketball, too!

The kids will love playing with all of this new equipment and were so excited to see the pictures in the assembly this morning! A big thanks to all my Student Council members and any parents who have helped run our events or raise money!! :-) 

Next week, I can start getting back to normalcy with STAAR over and will pick up again with my individual counseling sessions and get back in the classroom for lessons soon! Have a great weekend!! :-)  

New Musical Playground Equipment

I have been spending the majority of the week gearing up for STAAR; getting all the test booklets and materials organized and ready for each class! It has been busy and it unfortunately requires me to have to step away from some of my duties as a counselor for a couple of weeks, but I did have a moment this week to celebrate all the hard work my Student Council group has done to raise money for the school! Student Council has worked hard last year and this year to finally raise enough money to purchase two large musical pieces for the playground! They are very expensive items, so it took us some time to get the money, but we did it and the kids have already been enjoying playing with them so far!! I walked out there yesterday and there was a very long line of kids waiting to get to play with it! Student Council also made a large purchase of PE equipment (soccer balls, volleyballs, basket ball nets, kickballs, kickball bases, etc.)! I am sure the kids will also enjoy all of that new equipment!

 

Special thanks to Shae Williams, a former OHE parent, for hiring someone to come out and do the cement work to get these pieces into the ground permanently! We really appreciate that very generous donation! Also, thanks to Beth Thornton who helped us order the equipment and helped organize the installation of it!! We are so lucky to have such great parents and a supportive PTA!

Below are some "Fortune Tellers" that I have assembled that are fun to use when working with small groups of children or individually. I remember playing with and making these when I was in elementary school; although our version was more like who are you going to marry, what kind of house, how many kids, etc. ;-) Some of the topics on these fortune tellers I use with the kids are feelings, getting to know each other questions, compliments, and teasing choices. Here is the link if you would like to make some of these to use with your kids:

http://autismteachingstrategies.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Social-Skills-Paper-Fortune-Teller-Download1.pdf

(Even though the website says "autism teaching strategies," it is not just for children with autism. These are great to use with ALL students.)

One final photo to share from last Friday is my Hip Hop group that performed at the assembly! They performed to "La La La" and they did such a great job! For those of you who don't already know, I teach a hip hop class after school and just started this Monday with my last session for the year! We are scheduled to perform May 22 and this one will be super cute. They are dancing to "Don't Wake Me Up" by Chris Brown and will be performing in their pajamas!! :-) 

Have a great weekend and if you have kids in the testing grades, make sure they get plenty of sleep and eat a big, healthy breakfast each day next week!