Education | The Urban Educator

Using iTunes U for School-Wide Counseling Support

Posted on October 31, 2014 by nataliesweetpea

Have you heard of iTunes U?

If you have an iPad or iPhone you can download iTunes U which is basically an online course that your students and teachers can subscribe to and have all of your documents/materials and lessons at your fingertips.

This year, I’ve created our Middle School online course, “Surviving Middle School” (click here with your iOS devise) that gives students information from “How to Make Friends”, “What is a Bully?”, “How to Prepare for BIG Tests” and many more topics under the umbrella of School Counseling. Updates happen often so keep checking back for new information and links to helpful websites and apps to use for your School Counseling Program. Hope you find my course helpful for you and your students!!

Using “Love Notes” in Friendship Groups

Posted on October 26, 2014 by nataliesweetpea

This week in my girls friendship lunch group, I gave each student an envelope printed with their name on the outside (and a little red heart for added love). Inside the envelope, I wrote each student a positive love note such as, “your smile fills any room you are in” or “thank you for your honesty and participation in our group, we are so thankful to have you!”.

The girls LOVED this activity. After they read their special note, I gave them 3 minutes to write their own notes to other group members or themselves. I played some inspirational songs during this time and the girls used markers and small index cards. This special note above was one of the first student notes I received this year and it made me smile 🙂 These positive words of encouragement also came in handy for our next activity which involved a “I’m Special and Unique” Board to help boost self-esteem.

SelfEsteemActivity

Bright and Cheery Chevron Digital Backgrounds by Melissa Dalton

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Melissa-Dalton-34

School Counseling Office Design

Posted on October 26, 2014 by nataliesweetpea

My office is small, I have to use an unoccupied classroom if I need more space for groups. Here are some pictures of my active workspace – viewer BEWARE! This picture is taken in the middle of the day and the middle of the week…so please no judgements 🙂

I will add more photos when I clean up because I’ve moved the bookcase recently which has added a lot more room – it has really transformed the space!!

Who runs the world? GIRLS! How to Run Girls Lunch Groups

Posted on October 23, 2014 by nataliesweetpea

This year I have a lot of new students (not to mention being new myself!) and some of the students have come from being homeschooled for many years. I have some students that have come to me because they are looking to make friends and have had some bad experiences. I currently have 3 girls groups running during lunch/advisory (we have an hour) which are focused on making and keeping friends. I try to find 5-8 girls that will work good together and learn from each other – it is not hard for me to find students that want to have lunch with me 🙂 My office is pretty small so I go in to an open classroom and bring all of my goodies!

I structure my girls group as follows:

Ice Breaker: a quick activity to get the students talking…sometimes we start while we are eating and it can be very informal. If the girls are talking, I will step back and watch for good moments to use later if needed.

Group Rules: always read and remind the students of our group rules and our group name (decided during our first session)

Group Goals: using a pre-assessment tool, group goals are designed to help students where they need it most. I review our goals before each session to keep our priorities in mind. Students are able to share their ideas at this time, too.

Activity: the lesson paired with a group activity or discussion that will focus on the goal above.

Recap: student directed activity to make the final connections to our goals and the activity.

Closure: we close out our time together by thanking each other for our time and attention and add any last inspiration for the day. Sometimes I will continue reading a book related to the topic until the bell rings.

Keeping the group structure the same helps me organize my ideas but also helps students know when they can share and when they need to listen. So far, I’m feeling good but just getting my feet wet – more information and example lessons & ideas coming soon!

School Counseling Student Information Sheet

Posted on September 28, 2014 by nataliesweetpea

With my new job came over 700 new students. With teacher, administration and student referrals…I had a lot of students to get to know. I created this document to use during a first time session to keep conversation focused on the main goals of school counselors (academic, social/emotional and career topics). You can have students fill out the sheet and then use the information to foster conversation or you can fill it out with them. This sheet gives you an overall look into their lives and will prompt good conversation back and forth. You will be surprised at the information they share based on the rating scale! This is on my teachers pay teachers account for FREE or download below, enjoy!

School Counseling Info Sheet

The Best School Counseling Apps

Posted on September 26, 2014 by nataliesweetpea

I am always searching for new apps to use at my school. All of our students have iPads and we are a paperless school – which is super exciting but different! Here is a list of my favorites:

1. Feel Electric – this app lets you create users/players for an interactive feeling game. In the “moodisphere” students have to identify their moods. The program saves your history and allows for students to also learn what the feeling words mean by clicking on the words. For example when you click on the word “panicked” you will see (and hear) the definition “when you’re suddenly really scared of what may happen”. This can be a great conversation starter for you and your students. There are other games students can play – I haven’t had time to experience those games just yet however, since my kids can download this app themselves, i’d love to see them use it in their free time!

I love how interactive this is – take a look!

2. Haiku Deck – such an innovative and fun idea for education and counseling! Students can choose from a variety of (really great) stock photos, designs and fonts to create a text photo. Here is an example, I made this to show students my happy place:

3. Pinterest – seriously, need I say more?

4. Google drive – I am IN LOVE with google forms. I use them for everything…student notes, referrals from teachers and parent contacts. All of the responses go straight in to a spreadsheet and keep my information so organized. So easy!

5. Flashcard – this is a great tool for students that want to study for tests. I constantly have students coming in my office with test anxiety – this is a great tool that is fun to use, students can share their cards and you can play games!

I’ll continue updating this often so check back again soon!

Ready for a Change!

Posted on September 26, 2014 by nataliesweetpea

Well I’m back. Its been wayyyyy too long. Since my last post I have a new house, new husband, new name and new job. I am happy to say that I’m in the best place of my entire life. With that being said, I’m ready to get back to updating and sharing about my Urban Education Experience! Currently I am a 5th – 8th grade school counselor at a school in Center City Philadelphia. With over 700 students, I’m pretty busy but I am inspired everyday. Check out my new office:

To get to know all of my new students, I did a small presentation at our Welcome Assembly and also created a video for students to watch during advisory – turned out to be a very quick way to hit everyone! My day’s are filling up fast with drop in students, referrals and meetings. Check back soon for updates about my favorite apps (all of our kids have iPads), new books, videos and accessories I use in my office.

Principals 200 Club

Posted on September 11, 2013 by nataliesweetpea

Welcome to the start of the new school year! I would write more but this is my 3rd post of the day, the previous 2 were mysteriously deleted! Feel free to check out my pictures and use my “Office Staff Roles” in principals 200 to help you implement this at your school. More info to come – promise!

Behavior Management, Education, guidance, guidance counseling, middle school, Positive Behavior Support, Uncategorized, urban education

Guidance Suite Day 1

Image | Posted on August 20, 2013 by nataliesweetpea

First off, I apologize for the lack of updates this year. Some major life changes (did I mentioned I’m engaged?? he put a ring on it!) and also a career change (guidance counselor, woopwoop!) have taken a toll on my free time. My goal is one post every two weeks, so please check back often for updates!

Today is day one of decorating my guidance suite for the 2013-2014 school year and I couldn’t be more trilled! I work at a Charter School in Philadelphia (same one that I worked as a special education teacher) with grades kindergarten, 1st, 5th, 6th, 7th & 8th grade. There will be approximately 450 students across these six grades. School starts September 9th and I’m working on decorating (obviously…its the best part!) and putting my schedule together (HELP!). I will also be researching the topics for this coming school year. Does your school have a monthly character trait? If so, tell me more!

Positive Behavior Intervention & Support (PBIS) is in FULL SWING this coming school year! “School Culture” is very important to us, so we’ve changed the title of PBIS to The School Culture Team. We are working on our “big 8” systems and modeling/role playing with the staff during orientation. We spent a lot of time this summer with our School Culture Team and designed these school-wide and in-class systems such as arrival, dismissal, hallway transitions, getting supplies in the classroom, etc. Our staff will hear all about of these proposed systems during the next few weeks and work within grade teams to choose what works well for them. These systems are written as scripts and seem so silly to write but even sillier to act out (and super entertaining, I must say). When you act out your plan (literally pretend your staff is your students) you realize what works and what is too wordy. It can be as small as saying “collect materials” instead of “put your materials away”. Practicing through role play has also been effective in showing teachers exactly what we mean – when we say repeat, we mean it. When you do it the way it is written, it will be more effective (especially since we spent so much time tweaking it!). Have you had any experience writing “scripts”? if so, how did it go over with your staff?

One more small change we are making this year is that students are allowed to be in zone 2 (quiet) in the hallways and during transitions instead of zone 1 (silent). The reason for this is we are modeling REAL LIFE. Have you ever had to be silent in a mall hallway? how about an office building? We want to show our students how to act in the real world. I’m hoping teachers find this as a blessing and that this maximizes learning time. Do students have to be silent in your hallways during transitions? How does that work for you?

Best of luck with your school year! I have a feeling this will be the BEST ONE YET! enjoy!

Remember, your students & school are a reflection of YOU! (quoted by my amazing Principal) 🙂

New Year & Reset

Posted on January 15, 2013 by nataliesweetpea

It’s been awhile since I’ve been able to make a complete update to my behavioral world so here is a mini one to keep you interested!

Penny wars was a HUGE success! We were able to raise $650 in a 2-week period…we collected over 37,000 PENNIES…amazing. Thank goodness for TD Bank’s Penny Arcade is all I have to say! Since it was a competition between homerooms, all students will be receiving their incentive this week (who doesn’t love pizza and ice cream!)

January has come with a complete reset plan for our company. It is a time to reflect on practices and reset to ensure that everyone understands. We did it at the corporate level, school level and now classroom. I’ve seen a BIG impact in the overall compliance in my classroom and it started with this reset.

On Saturday, our core SWPBIS team went to a PaTTAN training. With all the hard work we’ve put in this year, much of the training was review but we were able to see data from staff surveys. From there we created our action plan for better implementation. It was a great feeling when the presenters from PaTTAN recognized me from the videos on our website!

Tomorrow we will be having our first assembly of the new year, “Positivity Promotes Peace” celebrating Martin Luther King Jr.’s real birthday and all the successes we’ve had in the past few months! We will have student performances on drums, we will showcase our award-winning basketball team and kickoff our PSSA countdown in style.

I will be back to update more as time goes on and give some tips for starting SWPBIS and what i’ve learned from this time last year! Hope you are having a wonderful New Year

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