Be a "Free Fish"

My friendship refresher lessons have continued into the upper grades as my co-counselor and I work hard to give students strategies to handle conflict appropriately.  I decided to use the book Simon's Hook, which I absolutely LOVE and use for classes, groups, and individual students.  There are so many variations of what you can do with this book, and I highly recommend it for any school counselor.

In second grade, I like to read the book to make sure the students fully understand the analogy of not biting the hook to the choice of reacting appropriately to teasing.  For third, fourth, and fifth grades, my co-counselor and I decided to switch it up and add a little more excitement with some You Tube videos, a fishing pole prop, and a visual reminder product the students could keep.  Also, I did some qualitative data collection with four classes that contain the majority of our self-referred and teacher-referred students (more on that in an upcoming post!)

To start our "Free Fish" lesson, we showed the following video on You Tube that my AWESOME co-counselor found.

 Then, I used my own fishing pole to assess comprehension and let the students summarize what we had just learned in the video about keeping control and power ourselves and being a free fish.  Students worked in cooperative groups to brainstorm hooks that they hear in their own classroom, at recess, on the bus, or in their neighborhoods.  After sharing some hook examples from each group on the Smartboard, I did some pre-teaching on the five strategies that Grandma Rose was about to introduce in the second video.  Then, we showed the second video.

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These videos are by far the best supplemental activities that I have seen for Simon's Hook, and the kids loved them! After reviewing the second video, I introduced the Free Fish Card to students (see below for a blank and completed example). We had students fill in the five strategies from Simon's Hook as well as other strategies we learned earlier in the year from our bullying lessons.  It was also a great time to review the times we automatically get adult help (bullying situations and any physical contact) since I had put that strategy in the middle of the card.

 
To end the lesson, we allowed students to practice being a free fish in an online quiz found here at the
Grandma Rose website. Each class "graduated" after handling five hooks appropriately. The best part is that the Free Fish Cards will continue to be a reminder to students of how to avoid biting the hooks their classmates may throw at them.  Students taped the cards to their desks or pasted them inside their agendas and teachers will be able to refer students to their cards if they hear insults or teasing in class. My hope is that we can all swim free between now and the end of the year!   Angela

                                             
                 

 

  

Spring Fever

If your school is anything like mine, March is a LONG month.  March tends to be the time when students decide they are tired of school, tired of each other, and spring break is still three weeks away.  I have found that the main issues that keep me busy are girl relational aggression and general conflict so I decided I needed to be as proactive as possible and confront the problem head on.  My co-counselor and I put our heads together to plan "friendship refresher" lessons for all second thru fifth grade students. I found a lesson for second grade on teachingtolerance.org , a site that I use fairly often when I need lessons on diversity or friendship topics.  The original lesson was shared by a teacher in Oregon (great collaboration!) and can be found here.  I tweaked it to fit my needs as all educators do and ended up with a fun 35 minute lesson.

I started off with one of my favorite friendship books for the primary grades,  What's the Recipe for Friends?

 

Then, I moved to a Smartboard lesson I created that had images of cooking tools and ingredients. The students reviewed the book, and I checked for comprehension by having them share what ingredients Freddy had needed to make friends at his new school.  After brainstorming, I asked the students what other recipes they liked to follow at home, and they quickly named brownies, cookies, and PIZZA as common examples.

Earlier in the week, I had called around to several pizza stores to try and get pizza boxes donated for this lesson, as well as future ideas that may come up....after all, what child doesn't get excited when he sees a pizza box?!  Papa John's was happy to help me out (shout out!), which I really appreciated. 

 

The students and I discussed the basic ingredients needed for pizza:  crust, sauce, and cheese/toppings.  We related each part of the pizza to friendship skills that would help them make AND keep friends all year long (this was also on a Smartboard page).

Crust = Friendly thoughts that give you the right attitude to make and keep friends

Sauce = Friendly words

Cheese/toppings = Friendly actions

Then, the students got to make their friendship pizzas in teams and write their own ideas of thoughts, words, and actions on the paper pizzas I provided.  For second graders, I would suggest brainstorming ideas for each of the categories together before breaking into groups so the activity will not take as long. I also created examples and put them in envelopes in case a team got stuck during the activity.  We shared ideas that the teams brainstormed themselves once the pizzas had all been picked up (by me!) for delivery.

The kids seemed to love this activity and will see a reminder of their "friendship pizzas" each day when they go up on the second grade bulletin board in their hall.

Happy counseling!

Angela