Career & College Wrap Up!

My final weeks of December are winding down and Career & College months will be coming to a close.  It won't be the end of career and college talk, though; Career Cafes with my fifth graders will be in full force through April. In the meantime, I wanted to round out my career posts with an updated version of one of my favorite lessons that connects what students are learning at school each day to future careers.  I have written about the lesson before here, but I now have a pulled together resource, "Career Connections: School Subjects to Careers", for my readers. Check it out at my TPT Life on the Fly Store! The best part is that it is only $1 through Friday evening as part of my DOLLAR DAYS December promotion!

For this lesson, third grade students worked together in teams with Chromebooks to research jobs matching their assigned subjects on this awesome KIDS SEARCH portion of the VA Career View website.  Each student was instructed to choose the job they liked best within the subject category, research the job, write the name of the job on their subject sheet, and draw a picture clue so others could get an idea of what the job does. Examples of the student work product are below....




The pre-selected jobs and kid friendly research describing the job makes this activity entirely possible in a 45-minute time block, unlike a lot of other research projects.  It is a great activity for third, fourth, and fifth grade students.Check out this bulletin board I made highlighting student work from this career lesson and others.

I  also wanted to brag on the staff at my school who did an excellent job in our first ever college door decorating contest.  All of the doors were fantastic and a few examples are shown below (the NC State one was our first place winner!). Creative and college focused....#priceless!

Enjoy and Happy Counseling! ~ Angela

DOLLAR DAYS: College & Career

It is Throwback Thursday (and my first TPT DOLLAR DAYS so read all the way to the bottom!).....do you remember this picture from last year?!  I celebrated Career Dress Up Day as a NASCAR racer and greeted students during arrival with my "Welcome Race Fans" banner.  For those who have followed my blog for awhile, you know that I LOVE the career domain and always promote college & careers schoolwide with morning show announcements, classroom lessons, bulletin boards, and spirit days.  This year, my co-counselor and I are actually extending Career & College month with events in November AND December.  I recently made a flyer for the staff to give an overview of our career and college events and started publicizing colleges and careers on bulletin boards around the school (the college pennant bulletin board below is my MOST popular pin on Pinterest EVERY WEEK!).  

I am asking staff and students to bring in college pennants or other swag for schools they want me to highlight on the morning show. I am also including a "College of the Week" (or every other week) on my bulletin board (see below). 

I love involving staff in the college and career fun! Each Thursday in November and December staff members are invited to wear college spirit wear to school.  Many staff members have also completed career trivia forms (see example below) for the career trivia bulletin board. It is more of a makeshift bulletin board because I wanted to place it in a high visibility area outside of the cafeteria where there is no actual board, but it meets the need! I plan to start asking trivia questions on the morning show next week and continue until winter break.  I think students will love hearing about what their teachers wanted to be when they were in elementary school and what their favorite subjects were as kids. It helps humanize them (we don't sleep at school!). I did put pictures in the corner to highlight their answers so younger students can scan for clues rather than having to read everything. 

Finally, I am ultra excited about the college door decorating contest and can't wait to see what my new colleagues create for the judging on Friday.  It's neat to see which students get involved, who has a lot of school spirit for their alma mater, and what type of facts they include about their school. I am learning a lot!  Pictures to come of their super creative designs.....

If you want to get started with some school-wide college and career fun, check out my new TPT resource with a few things to get you started! Staff career trivia sheets, door decorating contest resources, and bulletin board signs will give you the motivation you need to make DECEMBER or JANUARY your College & Career Month!

Each Thursday in November and December I will be celebrating DOLLAR DAYS in my TPT store as part of my throwback to cheaper times. This resource, along with others, will be reduced to $1 for 24 hours so get them while you can!  By Friday afternoon, we will be back to 2015 prices! :)

Enjoy and Happy Counseling! ~ Angela

October: Careers, College, and Costumes...Oh my!

Whew.....I have not written in three weeks, and I am ready to share! October has been a fun, busy, and eventful month at Cleveland Elementary.  As I mentioned in a previous post, we celebrate Career and College Month in October.  Be sure to check out some of my favorite career resources here if you are planning lessons.  This year, we had two Fridays where staff and students wore college shirts to promote their favorite teams or alma maters.  Teachers also had a blast decorating their doors for our door decorating contests. The winning doors were exceptional with either sound, light, 3D design, and/or student work being incorporated for a phenomenal display. Winning teachers were awarded a small gift card prize to recognize their awesome creativity and hard work, but ALL staff members who participated were given this little "treat" (below).

Our two first-place doors are below (ECU and NC State) as well as our second place doors (Meredith College).  The NC State door had paws going down the hall with recorded student voices making the wolf howl, and the ECU door had purple lights as well as student-made pirate faces to represent each child...very creative Ms. Troxler and Ms. Graham!

The Meredith doors created by our music teacher, Ms. Fitzgerald, were 3D with balloons, an iron gate, and clouds. Lovely!

For some extra fun this year, I asked teachers to complete a career interview so I could present trivia questions on the morning broadcast throughout the month.  It was a big hit, although next year I will have staff (including myself!) type their answers for ease of reading when students look for answers on my bulletin board.  I did add picture clues next to the interview sheets, which helped out a lot! Students were able to find the teachers who matched the trivia questions and put answers in a basket located in the media center.  I drew one correct answer for each question during the week to recognize the winning students, and they received a small prize.  I will add pictures of my bulletin board this coming week!

Red Ribbon Week fell within our Career and College Week so we linked a drug-free, healthy lifestyle to future education and career success on Career Dress Up Day.  I decided to dress up like a NASCAR race car driver and welcomed my "race fan students" with a floor sign as they came into the building from front carpool. It was a great way to start our Friday as I greeted lots of doctors, animal caretakers, professional athletes, business people, lawyers, and builders (as well as superheroes.....who knew you could get paid for that as an adult?!).

We also began our Career Cafe lunch events this week after completing our Holland's Theory lessons with each fifth grade class. Our first speaker, a fire chief,  represented the REALISTIC category.  We had approximely 25 fifth graders join him for lunch, and the best part was when the students got to try on all the fire gear at the end. I have decided to use an exit slip with the students during Career Cafe events this year so I can gather data on knowledge acquired by the students. I will be adding that slip and my Career Cafe invitation to my TPT store in the coming days. We have lined up future speakers to represent the other Holland's personality categories and have some extension activities planned, which I will share when they occur in December.

I hope my NC friends are gearing up for the NCSCA Conference next week in Greensboro where we will be able to advance our education through professional development.  The annual conference is such a great time to recharge and renew enthusiasm about our profession.  I will be presenting the session "Help! I'm in the Specialist Rotation....Now What?!" on Friday at 9am and would love to see you there. It will be a fun time!  For those of you not in NC, I'll be sure to share the highlights in a future blog post.

Enjoy and Happy Counseling! ~Angela

Popping onto Campus!!!!

                                    *Image from ebay.com

I can't believe it is the week before the EOGs, and there are only 12 more days of school left this year. Wow! It has gone fast! It feels odd to be wrapping up classroom guidance lessons and small groups and not be starting new ones.  I am still looking forward to our EOG pep rally tomorrow (will definitely be sharing my fun skit in a later post!), my middle school transition lessons after EOGs,  and the fun lunches I have started with my fifth graders in-between testing days, field days, and award days.

I mentioned in a recent career post here how I was excited to do virtual campus tours with  my fifth
graders after discovering the website youvisit.com.  I decided to do a popcorn theme and created a sign-up poster to put in the fifth grade hallway that reads "Popping Onto Campus".  I laminated the sign-up section of the poster so that I can reuse it for future lunches, and explained the concept to all my fifth grade classes a couple days prior to the first scheduled lunch.  After the 22 available lunch spots were taken, my fifth grade teachers removed the dry erase marker I attached with velcro.   I took a picture with my iPad as soon as I saw it was full (retouched to blur out names), just in case there was any smudging of names with hallway traffic, and I gave each student a "event ticket" with  the date and time on it.

 I also sent home a notice to fifth grade parents (see below) to drum up some donated popcorn so we could make the virtual field trips even more festive.  After all, what fifth grader doesn't like popcorn?! I have already had several parents send in four or five bags each so I think we will be covered for the rest of the year! When we did our first event today, I let the students vote on which of the 12 campuses they wanted to tour.  It was a close call between Syracuse University and Yale University, but Yale won out! After a welcome from our peppy tour guide Jessica, who explained she is a senior at Yale, we walked through numerous spots on campus with descriptions, college information, and even 360 degree panoramic views in many locations. It was really interesting!  Also, the pathways were lined with directional arrows that I let students go up and touch on the Smartboard to make it more interactive.

The lunches are optional, but I think I'm going to end up doing five or six before the last day of school based on student feedback.  It's also a really good break from the monotonous EOG prep and gives them something else to think about during a somewhat stressful time. Enjoy and Happy Counseling!  ~Angela

Let's Get Virtual!

Last week I was able to share my "Beyond Career Day" presentation as part of the NC School Counselor's Association Webinar series. Although I found it a little odd to present with no face to face contact or audience feedback (I'm not used to that as a counselor!), it was a great experience and I thoroughly enjoyed it!  I had initially posted about this presentation after the NCSCA fall conference, but I added some middle and high school content for the webinar and wanted to share the newest version.  You may not be focused on career interventions right now with the EOGs and middle school transition fast approaching, but it will be a good resource to file away for summer and beginning of the year planning next school year.

Beyond Career Day from apoovey

One of my FAVORITE updated resources that I included is this website where you can go on virtual college tours at select campuses across the United States.  There are colleges located in each geographic region of the US, and enthusiastic college students take you on walking tours to see classrooms, residence halls, the library, athletic fields, and other important landmarks on each campus. I am planning on allowing my fifth graders to sign up for the college tour of their choice and let them go on a "virtual field trip" during lunchtime between now and the end of the year.  It will be a nice addition to my Career Cafe lunchtime speakers and could be an engaging activity for students at every school level.  Get virtual and let me know how those tours go!
Happy Counseling! ~ Angela

QR Crazy!

It is official. I love QR codes and enjoy the creativity of using them to communicate with people in our school building.  In a previous Grants post , I shared that I had received money for mini iPads for my Technology Club. My fourth grade students have been using them a lot to show we are "tech savvy" with teachers, parents, administrators, and classmates.  We have had two parent nights recently and posted "Welcome Parents" QR codes as well as QR codes giving upcoming event information and ways parents could help our school (Box Tops, soup labels, etc.). 

 

I also have been using QR codes to do trivia challenges related to the character trait of the month.

Teachers can scan the QR codes to hear an audio file from the app Croak.It! I mentioned that app on my Tech-tacular  post awhile back and use it all the time for short messages.

However, the most intensive project I have done with QR codes is my "Scanvenger Hunt" lesson I used when teaching Holland's Theory to fifth graders during my Career Unit.  I spoke about this lesson at the NCSCA Conference in November and several people asked me about it afterwards, even asking if they could buy the PDF from me.

My first lesson of the Career Unit introduced Holland's Hexagon and explained how jobs and personality categories can match to help make individuals happier and more successful at work.  Then, students took an interest inventory to see what their two highest personality categories were. I gave them a few examples of jobs that could fit in each category.  

My second lesson was held in the media center during specials and my media specialist co-taught the lesson with me.  Each class was divided into six groups, one assigned to each personality category.  Each group received the following items:

• A folder with the QR Scanvenger Hunt for their personality type inside
  
• An iPad or iPod
• A summary sheet to record the information they learned (a great way to document an increase in knowledge from the beginning of the Career Unit)

Students used their Smart device to explore their group's personality category and learn about a possible job or famous person in that specific category.  Each QR code took them directly to a website (like Wikipedia) for research information, a video, Bureau of Labor and Statistics information, an employer website, or audio files with messages about the personality category.

The media center ended up being a great location for the lesson because my school's security settings prevented the iPads from going to YouTube videos directly. Instead, students accessed the videos from desktop computers and then returned to their tables to continue work.  A classroom would also work well if you needed a desktop computer for this issue. However, I never experienced this problem at my previous school so I think it is just the way the WIFI is set up at my current school. I will admit, it was a LOT of work to create the "Scanvenger Hunt" for each of the six personality categories initially, but now I can use it every year.  The kids loved it, and it was so exciting to do something differrent and use "Smart" technology...the way  of the future! Many of you have 1:1 initiatives starting in your school districts so you could do something similar with your students.  If you are interested in getting the PDF file with all six personality "Scanvenger Hunts", summary sheets (pic above), and a User Guide, you can purchase it here. 

Feel free to email me if you have questions- apoovey@hotmail.com
Happy Counseling! ~  Angela

I HEART School Counselors!

Wow....what a great NCSCA conference! Thanks to those who came to hear my session- "Beyond Career Day."  I was able to talk to many of you after my talk and throughout the rest of the conference, and I really enjoyed meeting new friends and reconnecting with my old ones.

                                                                    
The stellar, Andrea Burston, from JYJoynerCounselor
blog (above) and enjoying time with fantastic counselor friends I have worked with throughout my career (below).

Also, I am linking some of the handouts from my presentation for those who attended and would like to download them OR for other readers who could use some career resources.

Bobblehead Kids - Kindergarten
A Hat for Ivan - First Grade
Family Career Tree - Second Grade
QR Scanvenger Example- Fifth Grade

  Enjoy and Happy Counseling!  ~ Angela

A Career Countdown....3, 2, 1!

Yesterday I had a PLC (professional learning community) meeting with the school counselors in my county, and the topic for our discussion was "Career Ideas".  I LOVE the Career domain in the ASCA National Model and have always spent a lot of time doing career activities with my students.  After hearing all of the great ideas my fellow counselors and I shared with each other,  I was excited to keep the collaboration going in the school counselor blogging world.  So, here are some of my top resources that I have used or will soon be using with my students:

3.  Songs/Books
"Career Bazillions" YouTube Video

 I cannot tell you how AMAZING this music video is to use in classroom guidance, in small groups, or even on the morning announcements for schoolwide use.  My co-counselor and I used it as an intro "hook" for every grade level when we presented our career lessons to K-5 this year.  I originally thought I would just use it for the lower grade levels, but it got such a great response that we ended up using it for everyone.  The older students thought it was just as funny as the younger students did!

I didn't know about the book When I Grow Up by Charise Harper (thanks Cynthia Dunn!), but it immediately reminded me of the Bazillions video and could be used in the same lesson or on its own.  I personally love the idea of having real kids' faces included in the illustrations and think it captures the students' attention in a meaningful way.


Other awesome career books I would recommend are:  When I Grow Up by Weird Al Yankovic, Maybe You Should Fly a Jet by Dr. Seuss and A Hat for Ivan by Max Lucado.   I am especially excited about A Hat for Ivan because I had never heard of it before until yesterday (thanks Sara Foster!), and the lesson ideas that were shared to go with it are adorable.  It will be on my classroom guidance calendar next year, for sure!!!
 


Finally, I like to do career research with my older students (see more on that below) and the series Careers for Kids Who Like..... (fill in Science, the Arts, Reading, etc...) is a fantastic supplement to any online research that students may do in a computer lab/classroom.




2.  Interest Inventories
There are tons of interest inventories out there that students can use to be directed toward specific career clusters that fit their likes and dislikes.  One of my favorites is the ever popular PAWS in JOBLAND,
which is FREE and can be accessed through the College Foundation of NC website at cfnc.org.  It offers an A-Z Job Search, a Job Finder Interest Inventory, quizzes, and lets you explore different career clusters in Jobland.  Also, you can choose to have sound on or off during the activities, allowing you to include younger students or less fluent readers (2nd-3rd) who may not be able to use these activities otherwise.

Another website I really like is Drive of Your Life.  It is intended for middle school students so I typically use it with fifth graders later in the year. Students do have to create a log-in and it is a longer activity, so it is a good site to use if you can partner with your media specialist or technology teacher to offer extension activities after your career lessons.  Students LOVE creating their vehicles as they answer interest inventory questions.  Then, they get to drive along the highway in their car and exit at different ramps to learn about particular jobs that might fit their interests. It almost reminds me of a video game, which certainly appeals to this age group. 

1.  Career Videos/Websites
One of the exciting things about the Internet is that is opens up an entire world that was previously unavailable for our students.  Students who only know about the jobs of doctor, police officer, and firefighter can quickly be exposed to a wealth of occupations, as long as they have access to a computer and the Internet. Along that line, there are some fantastic websites that have libraries of career videos and other information that students can access for career research.

Knowitall.org has an excellent Career and Technology Education section, which includes "Career Aisle" videos for elementary, middle, and high school students.  There are 16 different career clusters that contain videos on specific careers within the cluster. 


Virgina Career VIEW also has some awesome resources such as Career Town games, a Kids Search job database, and much more! I  used the Kids Search job database this year in my third grade lessons to connect school subjects to future careers. My students were assigned a specific school subject and did research (both with books such as the Careers for Kids Who Like series and online resources) to find names of careers that connected to those subjects.  The Career VIEW website was a  huge help in focusing the students on appropriate careers.

There will be more career posts in my future, but I hope these top resources will be a good start in helping to plan career lessons and interventions.  Happy Counseling!
                                                     Angela