Beyond Fidget Spinners.....

Yesterday I had the pleasure of attending and presenting at the NCSCA School Counselor's Conference in Greensboro, NC. It is truly one of the best professional development experiences available to counselors each year, and I loved connecting with former and current colleagues as well as meeting new school counselors!  Access my presentation by clicking the image below and feel free to email me any questions to apoovey@hotmail.com. 
                               Happy Counseling! ~ Angela

RAMPing UP!

                                * Image from ncschoolcounselor.org

Belonging to your professional state organization is one of the most important ways to stay connected and grow as a professional school counselor. I am beyond excited that this week is the NC School Counselor Association's annual conference. Read more about NCSCA to see what the organization offers its members. On Thursday, I will be presenting on the RAMP (Recognized ASCA Model Program) process and will be posting all of my materials here.  I hope you will come by and see me in person!

If you are interested in RAMPing up this year or in the future, please save this resource as a tool to guide you. In addition, I have wonderful colleagues who will be sharing their talents and innovative programs with attendees such as Page Pfister, who is sharing some ideas about book clubs. To celebrate, I am making all of my book club activity packs at the Life on the Fly TPT store 50% off until Saturday.

Enjoy and Happy Counseling! ~ Angela

NCSCA: It's Kick-off Time!

It is NCSCA time...my favorite time of the year!   A chance to recharge, reconnect with former colleagues, and refocus on what I love about being a school counselor.  Today I was privileged to represent my Southwest Region as a delegate for the NCSCA delegate assembly.  I met some amazing school counselors in neighborhood counties (shout out to Ashley, Rachel, Renva, and Tim).

We focused on major issues facing school counselors,  ways we can advance our profession, and learned more about  how we can be integrated into the state organization...hello NCSCA speed dating (our way to learn about state committees)!

All in all, the experience solidified my belief that North Carolina has THE best professional school counseling organization in the country with vision, enthusiasm, and dedication to spare. Tomorrow the real conference kicks off, and I couldn't be prouder to be a #GAMECHANGER  presenting on one of my passions, student book clubs.  To celebrate, I am posting  a NEW boys' leadership book club activity pack that I have just started with two fifth grade groups. 

 I am using the book Middle School Rules by Brian Urlacher, former Chicago Bears' lineman, MVP, and pro-bowl player to help facilitate the topics of leadership, character, and good behavior choices with my students.  I am so excited to be incorporating football analogies into our conversations like a calm down scoreboard,  touchdown goal tracker, fumble cards, and touchdown vs. turnover thoughts.

If you are at NCSCA and want to learn more about book clubs, come by and see me tomorrow at the 10:50 session.  There will be giveaways and lots of information to share.  To my readers in other places, you can access my handout here and email me at apoovey@hotmail.com if you have any questions.  It is sure to be a lot of fun.....let's get this game started!

Happy Counseling! ~ Angela

ASCA was SPICY!

It has been 12 days since the ASCA Conference wrapped up in Phoenix, and I am just now getting a chance to reflect about my top "spicy" moments during my days there (house hunting, family reunions, and Fourth of July vacations are time consuming!!).  Although nothing will probably ever live up to my first ASCA conference experience with #FLOTUS Michelle Obama's surprise appearance (reminisce with me here), there were some great moments to be had in the 112 degree Phoenix weather. Here are my top 5:

5.  Keynote by Tim Shriver:  From the moment Mr. Shriver walked on the stage, you could sense his passion for Special Olympics and his desire for all to create inclusive environments in school, sports, and beyond.  His keynote was particularly thought provoking for me because I started to think more about the self-contained classrooms I have interacted with at my different schools and the many additional interventions I could have done for those students with disabilities.  The highlight of this speech was when Mr. Shriver brought up a group of Special Olympics participants from Kellis High School in Arizona, and they taught us how to do their school dance, the Cougar Dance. All of the school counselors in the audience were encouraged to dance along with them "like no one was watching"  and boy did we!  We looked totally ridiculous, but it was such a touching moment to feel the students' enthusiasm and share it with them.  Check out the Go Pro video I took of our groove session for a laugh!

4.  Counseling with HeART session:  I love art and especially love getting new

ideas of how I can incorporate art into my individual and group counseling sessioons.  Julie Ford from Oregon did not disappoint! I walked away with about 25 new ideas of activities I can use with students.  My favorites, including one of my live tweets during her session, were:
*Using masks to help kids talk about feelings within or behind the mask.
*Creating vision boards to help kids with goal setting.
*Working on mandalas with students as part of relaxation exercises and concentration/focus activities.
*Allowing students to match colors to their feelings and then creating a heart drawing that represents what fraction of each feeling is inside them at any given time.

3.  Tweet Up with my Social Media Friends:  My social media friends were in full effect at the second annual "Tweet Up".  Susan Spellman Cann (@SSpellmanCann), Bridget Helms (@bridgethelms), JanD-M (@humbleofferings) and Carol Miller (@tmscounselor) did a fantastic job of organizing everything and incorporating tons of cute details at the meet up.  From passing out FB group buttons, creating a "Tweet Up" bingo game, taking inspirational quote pics, and snapping a group photo, it was a total blast!! Check out the collage I made of our activities.

Susan also made this great Storify project to capture our time together.

2.  "Full STEM Ahead" Conference Presentation:  I want to give a shout out to all the speakers at the conference who took a risk, put themselves out there to share knowledge with our counseling community, and spent part of their conference giving back to others.  It is a lot of extra work to present at the conference, but I love connecting with other counselors and hearing their feedback.  This year I focused on the STEM interventions I have done at my elementary the past two years.  From STEM Career Cafe speakers to Genius Hour to classroom lessons, it has been a blast exposing my students to the STEM careers of the future.  You can access my presentation handout here. Be sure to email me if you have any questions at apoovey@hotmail.com.  A few of my STEM resources are posted at my TPT store, and I hope to add a couple more over the next month (in-between moving..ha!).  Also, I am super excited to have a guest blogger for my next post who is going to share additional resources and another perspective on incorporating STEM with your students! Stay tuned.....

1.  RAMP Recognition Dinner: To my fellow ambitious RAMP seekers, hang in there; there is a light at the end of the tunnel. RAMP is a big undertaking, and it requires a lot of organization and time, especially if you are the only person at  your school working on it (I'm talking to you elementary counselors).  However, if once you earn the RAMP designation, it will be worth it. I cannot tell you how special I felt being dressed up, eating great food and drinking wine, and walking across that stage to pose for pictures and accept the RAMP award for my school.  It is a career highlight that I will always remember and appreciate, and I barely remember the HOURS of work that went into my portfolio at this point.  Keep working hard, you will get there!! I was also super proud to be with some of my fantastic former mentors, other NC awardees, and state board colleagues who truly make our profession great  (see pic below)!

I hope if any of my blog readers attended ASCA this summer you will also share a highlight you experienced at the conference in the comments section.  Also, a huge congratulations to Carey Hughes for being the book giveaway winner from my last post.  I even got to meet her in person at the conference before she was chosen randomly through my raffle app.  I hope you enjoy the book, Carey!!


Happy summer and happy counseling! ~Angela

Rockin' in my Career Shoes- Responsibility and Careers

*From Pinterest from instapray.com

October is Career and College Month at Cleveland Elementary, one of my favorite school-wide activities of the year!  There is nothing I love more than linking what students are doing each day to their future education, career success, and happiness.  I feel like I have hit the lottery each day when I go to work loving what I am doing, and I want my students to feel the same way in their chosen fields.

At the very end of September, I sent home this flyer to parents so they would be clued into all the activities we are doing this month.

This Friday is our first college team shirt day so I have been promoting it on the morning broadcast and have been having fun showing examples of what students can wear.  Next week, we will kick off our college door decorating contest with teachers showing school spirit for their alma maters.  It is a great way to get college conversations started and create awareness of different higher education institutions that students can attend. Teachers also have a chance to win prizes for the best decorations if they finish in first, second, or third place. My PTA President, my co-counselor, and I are judges and will be following a rubric to assign points....this contest is no joke! Here are some of our submissions from last year......

Later in the month, we will incorporate Red Ribbon Week into our Career and College activities by having Career Dress Up Day with our daily theme, "Love Your Future, Be Drug Free." My co-counselor and I are also linking the character trait of responsibility to career-focused lessons in all grades K-5 and are gearing up to start our Virtual Campus tour lunches and Career Cafes again.  As you can see, it is quite a busy month! I have written about previous classroom guidance career lessons  in my Life on the Fly posts here and here, and I have added several career lesson plans and activities to my Life on the Fly TPT store here (Budgeting, Hats for Ivan, Pete the Cat, etc.).  Check them out for some FUN, ALREADY MADE career ideas!!!

If you are looking for more professional development on career awareness activities or resources, check out CFNC.org.   I had no idea that CFNC had a Wednesday webinar series prior to being asked to share my ideas as a presenter.  I hope you will find this link helpful in seeing upcoming professional development opportunities that  may be of use to you in planning career domain activities. The PDF handout from my webinar presentation can be downloaded here and is a modified version of the career presentation I gave at the NC School Counselor's Conference last year.

Last, I was extremely excited to try something new this year and incorporated everyone's beloved book character, Pete the Cat, into my second grade career lessons. After introducing the lesson by showing them real shoes as a "hook", I asked students how they could apply the character trait of Responsibility in their jobs as students. Then, I showed a Pete the Cat "Rockin' in my School Shoes" YouTube video, which really got their attention! If you have not seen students dance and sing to Pete the Cat, it is quite an entertaining sight. A brief trailer is below:

We discussed the video and listed Pete's responsibilities as a student.  Next, we completed a Smartboard activity where students brainstormed names of future jobs while putting different types of shoes on Pete.  This activity could also be done in a paper version if you do NOT have a Smartboard.  

Finally, we linked these possible jobs to interests in a cooperative learning activity. Students began to make the connection between things they love to do and jobs they might choose.  Their finished work products included decorating their own rockin' shoes, listing their high school graduation date, and writing the name of the job they are interested in.  

It was a really fun lesson and one I will definitely do again next year. Check out some of my work samples below!  How are you promoting college and career awareness at your school??  

Happy Counseling! ~ Angela

Coffee with the Counselors: School Counseling PR

*Image from School Counselor Connection

Well, it is now October, and the image above might perfectly express how you are feeling now that the hustle and bustle of the year has really started.  Or, maybe you are still perfectly in control.  I saw a picture of a school counselor's desk the other day that made me laugh because it reminded me I need to clean my own! Between the pre/post surveys, DUKE TIP applications, lesson plans, behavior referrals, my own "to do" list, and small group permission slips, there is not a lot of empty space where I can work.  However, cleaning is low on my priority list when I think of all the other direct service activities I want to get done while kids are in the building.

Teachers are feeling the same way, so  I decided to try out an idea I had heard about from another school counselor this year- a meet and greet time with teachers to discuss student concerns.  My co-counselor, Nicole, and I  named our event "Coffee with the Counselors." It seemed like a great way to connect with my classroom teachers and get information on student referrals now that they have worked with their classes for over a month.  Nicole, made this lovely invitation...she's awesome!

We decided to have half of the grade levels come in the morning before school started since we were offering Dunkin' Doughnuts coffee, juice, water, and goodies to eat.  The other half of the grade levels have planning before lunch so we invited them for the first 20 minutes of their planning time (this invitation went to that group).

I set out a binder that had a page for each grade level so they (or I) could write down student names, concerns, and any other notes that would be helpful when discussing student referrals. It ended up being a pretty successful event, although the grade levels who came during planning had better attendance than those who were scheduled before school (we will schedule it on a different morning next year, NOT Monday!).  All of these positive interactions with staff help promote the school counseling program, and I will definitely try this again next year!

I have also been working on school counseling PR in other ways.  This past week, I presented to the elementary school principals about the ASCA National Model along with my fantastic school counselor colleague Amanda Allen.  It was a great experience, and we will do two more rounds as we present to middle school and high school principals over the next two weeks.  Also, I am scheduled to present my 2014-2015 school goals to my staff next Wednesday and have created a Prezi to organize my thoughts. You may remember I did the same thing last year and talked about it in my blog post here.

Finally, I have been helping to organize the school counselors in my PLC as we work on taking the next steps to RAMP and completing more ASCA paperwork this year.  We will be completing the annual calendar, Closing the Gap Action Plans, Smart Goal Worksheets, and Management Agreement as our minimum documentation for 2014-2015, and I could not be more excited!  We had a kick-off event for professional development, and I was able to present the following PowerPoint presentation to my colleagues. I also had the pleasure of presenting this same information to my Harnett County colleagues last week to promote the National Model.  I hope this presentation will be helpful to my blogger friends as well.  Make sure to check out the hyperlinks within the presentation to see how I collect some of my data and share it with my stakeholders throughout the year.  There are also links to the ASCA templates for National Model documentation.

                     Enjoy and  Happy Counseling! ~ Angela

Challenge to Collaborate

The power of collaboration is one of my core beliefs as a school counselor. It is the reason I love being a PLC facilitator and was the driving factor for starting a blog. Every time I get an email from another counselor across the country or someone asks a question or comments on one of my posts, it creates a connection and exchange of new ideas that benefits everyone.  The power of social media and technology truly creates unending opportunities for educators (or any hobbyist or working person for that matter!).  It makes me wonder what I did before Pinterest, school counseling blogs, Twitter, and online forums...wow!

On that note,  I wanted to share what some great school counselors are doing and have shared with me recently. I am flattered that my posts have prompted others to implement similar ideas, but more importantly, I am inspired by how others have taken ideas I have shared and made them even better!!

Anne Caudill, an awesome veteran counselor at Laurel Hill Elementary in Scotland County, NC,  emailed me and shared these pictures of a bulletin board she had made after reading about connecting Perseverance to goal setting in this post.  She also gave me a great kinesthetic lesson idea for careers and linking educational achievement to higher pay, which I will be sharing when I focus on careers again next year....fantastic!

Sarah Klimek from Centennial Elementary in North Dakota was in contact with me following my post about book clubs.  We emailed several times sharing resources, and she came up with an EXCELLENT question guide for Strange Case of Origami Yoda, which will add tremendously to the discussion of themes and social strategies that I already use with my students. Check out these cute activities she shared that can be incorporated into a book club session:

Turn these sentences into Yoda-speak:
 --You must read the book to find out.
--Learn to speak Jedi.  
--Clean your room.
-- Ask for a new bike.
--Go to bed early.

Compose an acronym with sentences that describe Dwight’s appearance and personality.

D__________________________________________________________________________

W_________________________________________________________________________

I__________________________________________________________________________

G__________________________________________________________________________

H_________________________________________________________________________

T__________________________________________________________________________

I'm also taking collaboration to heart as the editor of the NCSCA News Magazine.  I know not everyone has time or feels comfortable with writing a long article for our news magazine so I decided to try something different for the Spring issue. I am asking for "best resource" examples from counselors across NC in order to include a "Top 10 or 20" list from the experts who use these materials each day. Counselors can include bibliotherapy books, videos, counselor workbooks, or anything that has become a "go to" resource for them. I would like to open this up to my blog readers, too.  If you have a resource you could not live without in your professional work, please fill out the information below and share it with me.  I will include all shared resources in an upcoming blog post so EVERYONE has a chance to save the list for future PTA funds or school counseling purchases.  Happy Counseling Y'all! ~ 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