BeIt's always my goal that every student feels cared for an included at Fairview and I'm always looking for new ways to do just that! For the weeks of Oct 28-30 & Nov 4-8, we are focusing on how each person can be inclusive in all settings at Fairview. Our daily focus on the morning announcements has been about inclusion and I have provided teachers with a few videos and resources to use in their classrooms to spark conversation around the topic. Our October assembly included a skit about Spookley the square pumpkin and presented some information to the entire school about how to include others. In the halls, I have hung some half sheet posters with ideas to encourage kids to talk to each other and include each other. The ideas were taken from the Stop Bullying Now-Include Someone kit. I've also asked teachers to have their students color a puzzle piece to represent themselves so we can see how each person is an important part of our community.
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We are taking this opportunity to remind our students about the Buddy Bench on the playground and on Wednesday, November 6th we will present a new space--the Friendly Falcon Spot--in the cafeteria. I'm excited to have another way for our students to advocate for themselves if they are able. And, if they aren't, we are going to keep working to create more opportunities together :) 

This week was short for everyone and next week will be short for me because I'm going to a conference for School Counselors on Monday and Tuesday and will be out of the building for a meeting all day Friday so it's taking me two weeks to do one week of classes! :) 

KD- most of my kinders are finishing up bullying prevention lessons (Hays' class is a lesson behind). Our 4th lesson was about bystanders--people who see or hear bullying happen to someone else. We talked about how we have a lot of power to help others!

1st- Being a good friend and a positive community member (good learner). We read Hunter's Best Friend at School and talked about how part of being a good learner is being a good friend and part of being a good friend is being a good learner! Our classroom community is counting on us to do both so that everyone can learn and feel safe and included.

2nd- We reviewed bullying prevention and feelings then talked about when we should report and when we can be a problem solver so we don't need to tattle. We read A Bad Case of Tattle Tongue and sang my tatting vs reporting song!

5th Character Connection- We've been talking about character and our counselor class last week tied to that with our conversations about peer pressure! This week we talked about the way we treat others and how it impacts them. We read Have You Filled a Bucket Today? and talked about how WE can help others feel good and that when we do that, it helps us feel good, too! The students wrote a little about what being a bucket filler means to them and then Mrs. Holman and I set up a special opportunity for them to practice being bucket fillers to each other--we'll put our plan into action in our next CC lesson :)
This lesson tied in well with the inclusion theme we are talking about school wide right now!

K- Bullying prevention lesson 3. We talked about how to use our strong, respectful voices to assertively "refuse" behaviors that hurt us. If a friend calls us a name, we can stand tall, look them in the eye, and say, "Please stop. I don't like that."

3- Rumors. We reviewed bullying prevention then started to talk about ways to be respectful to others. I THOUGHT I had brought my respect paste with me and we spread it all out before we realized it was RUMOR paste! We talked about what a rumor is (a story that spreads around and isn't ours to tell. Might start out as true, but often changes as it gets passed around), why rumors can hurt people, and what to do if we hear a rumor--check out my Rumor Rules below! We tried to put it all back in the tube and discovered that it isn't possible :( 

4- Cooperation. We reviewed bullying prevention then we did a little activity in which the goal was to earn as many stickers as possible. My participants thought it was a competition and worked against each other. We talked about how when we work together, everyone can be more successful!! We brainstormed times we might need to work together in 4th grade and talked about strategies for making compromises and cooperating.

5- Peer pressure. In our special Character Connection writing classes, we have been centering our work around character--who we really are when no one is looking. We are working toward talking about reputation--how people see us and how we want to be known. In this lesson we brainstormed things (negative and positive) that people in our general age group might encourage us to do. We talked about thinking ahead about what we want to say "no" to and how we can do that. We reviewed I-statements and STAR problem solving to be used with less intense situation, but I encouraged all of them to go home and talk to their trusted adults about real situations they might face and how to solve them.

K- Bullying Prevention lesson 2. We talked about how to report bullying. We brainstormed adults we trust. We can go to those people and tell them *who *what *when *where and ask for help. We touched on kid vs. adult sized problems (telling to get help rather than telling just to get someone in trouble for something we could solve ourselves), but will talk much more about that later on!

1st- Bullying Prevention- bystanders. We reviewed recognizing, refusing, and reporting bullying. Then we talked about what to do if we see or hear it happening to someone else. We have lots of bystander POWER that we can use to make the problem better! We can refuse the behavior, choose NOT to join in or laugh, help the student report, be a friend, etc.

2nd- Expressing a variety of feelings appropriately. We talked about how ALL feelings are okay, but that we have to express them and deal with them appropriately. Ex- it's okay to be mad, but not okay to rip up our paper and yell. Instead we can take deep breaths, ask for a break, talk to someone we trust, etc. We read How are you Peeling? and used the feelings in the book to discuss how to express different feelings. 

K- We started our Bullying Prevention Unit this week! Lesson 1 was all about how to recognize what bullying is: mean, on purpose, over and over. We watched a story on the smartboard and practiced identifying bullying.

3- We finished our Bullying Prevention Unit by talking about bystander power. Bystanders are people who see or hear bullying happen. They have the power to make the situation better or worse depending on their reactions. Bystanders can help by standing up for the person being bullied (if it is safe and appropriate to do so), reporting to an adult, or being a friend to the person being bullied.

4 & 5- We finished our Bullying Prevention Unit by talking about being a bystander to cyberbullying. We talked about what cyberbullying is-bullying using electronic technology- and how we have the same power as bystanders in a cyberbullying situation as we do in other kinds of bullying.

As we have talked about supporting kids who need a friend, I have mentioned the buddy bench to my classes! We'll spend more time talking about it in a few weeks when we do some inclusion activities school-wide. 

1st- Bully Prevention lesson 2: Refusing Bullying. We reviewed feelings and what bullying is then talked about how to be assertive when we stand up to unkindness.

2nd- Bully Prevention lesson 3: Bystanders. Bystanders are anyone who see or hear bullying happen. We talked about how they can recognize, refuse, report, and support in those situations.

K- We reviewed the characteristics of a good friend and positive community member. We read Friends Never Always and talked about how to choose a friend (things in common, play the same game, like the same things, etc). Then we learned how to introduce ourselves and practiced!

3rd- Bully Prevention lesson 2: How to refuse bullying. We talked about being assertive--using our strong respectful voices and body language--to stand up for ourselves when people are unkind. 

4th & 5th- Bully Prevention lesson 2: Bystander responsibility. We talked about how a bystander is anyone who sees or hears bullying happen. Those people can make the situations better or worse by what they do. We talked about how they can recognize, refuse, report, and support depending on the situation.

Kindergarten- We talked about characteristics of good friends and positive community members. We brainstormed in small groups what friends and learners do and then shared our ideas to create a friend! See the picture below :)

1st- We took a week off from bullying to talk about feelings. We reviewed the basic four feelings and then played a guessing game with some of the more complicated emotions. We discussed appropriate ways to express those feelings. I talked a little bit about how my job is to help kids with big feelings and did a little magic trick for them! :)

2nd- Bullying Prevention lesson 2-- Last lesson we talked about recognizing and reporting bullying. This lesson we discussed refusing assertively. We talked about the difference between aggressive, passive, and assertive responses and what an appropriate response would sound like (ex: "Stop. I don't like that." in a firm, but respectful voice).

Kindergarten- We learned about Safety! We talked about our 8 Never Never Rules, our Always Ask First Rule, and the 3 Rs of safety: Recognize, Refuse, and Report. A couple new friends, puppy and snail, came to visit to tell us stories about how they used the safety rules to keep themselves safe. 

1st-5th- We started our first of three bully prevention lessons. Our curriculum for this unit is by the same publisher as our safety curriculum: SecondStep. We use our 3 Rs: Recognize, Refuse, and Report to identify bullying (when someone is mean, on purpose, over and over, it is one-sided and we can't get it to stop on our own), know who to tell, and use our assertive words and actions to stand up for ourselves and others. We talked about how sometimes we need to report BEFORE we refuse to keep ourselves safe and to know how to handle tricky situations. 

1st-5th grade classes all got a brief review of what I do and how to let me know if they need me. Then we did a general safety lesson using a scripted curriculum made by SecondStep. 

Using cartoon pictures depicting different situations, we covered the 3Rs of being safe:
Recognize- is it safe or unsafe?
Refuse- if something is unsafe use words and actions to say "no"
Report- tell an adult in charge of you

Then we discussed the Always Ask First Rule- always ask an adult in charge of you before you go somewhere, take something from someone, or do an activity you aren't sure about

My younger grades also discussed the 8 Never-Never Rules to keep them safe!

Kindergarten- we spent time learning about what I do and things we will do together in class--like my very special Hello Song! We had fun moving around and doing the School Counselor Hokey Pokey together. Then I tried to learn ALL their names--definitely a work in progress :)