It is October and time for bullying prevention awareness activities in schools everywhere! Should October be the only time we talk about bullying prevention?!
NO! But, is it a great time to teach students how to handle bullying and prepare them for the potential threat of bullying?!
Of course! At our school, my co-counselor and I created a schedule of events for the month. We sent out a memo to parents and staff at the end of September so they could gear up for the upcoming bullying prevention activities.
We chose to wear blue and STOMP out bullying on October 5th as part of the national recognition day. Then, we held our spirit week October 12th-16th. Check out our daily themes above and how students participated below!
Those were fun days especially crazy sock day with my
Wonder Woman cape socks (yes, you need some!), but the bulk of my emphasis has been on weekly guidance lessons in first, third, and fifth grade classrooms.
I showed my all-time favorite
RESPECT RAP on the morning show to students and was able to use it as a jumping off point when I made FRIENDSHIP PIZZAS with my first graders. I have written about this lesson before
here and finally put my
lesson plan and
SMART board notebook file on
TPT.
Download it NOW because the lesson plan is FREE for the next 48 hours!!!
In third and fifth grades I used the Steps to Respect Curriculum from the Committee for Children (makers of Second Step). I still haven't found anything I like better! I created my own Smartboard lessons teaching the 3 Rs, Recognize, Refuse, and Report. I love incorporating movie clips when we are learning how to RECOGNIZE the bullying definition. This year I used two video clips --the Sneetches and A Christmas Story-- to process the three essential bullying definition questions:
1) Is it one-sided?
2) Does it
keep happening?
3) Is it hurting, frightening, threatening, or leaving someone out on purpose?
The Sneetches clip was a new addition, and it worked out really well. I even added the cartoon figures to my bullying prevention bulletin board so students would have a visual reminder of the 3 Rs and the refusing words.
I intentionally left a lot of clear space on this board because 3-5 students have been challenged to integrate what they have learned in the Steps to Respect lessons into original work products like posters, cartoons, poems, songs, raps, or any other creative work. I will post any entries I get and PTO donated "bucket filler" spirit sticks that I can give for participation prizes. Do you know about spirit sticks?! They are ultra popular at my school this year!
I brought back my Friendship Pizza bulletin board, too, with a few changes like teacher pics....the kids always get a kick out of them!
Our final week in October will include sharing bullying statistics on the morning show and a scavenger hunt on the playground for "NO BULLYING" cards just to keep bullying prevention on students' minds. What have you been doing this month?! I would love to hear!
Enjoy and Happy Counseling! ~ Angela
