By Laura Driscoll | Behavior , Social Emotional Skills
To me, a calm classroom doesn’t have to mean a quiet one. It means a classroom where students are taught and practice being in charge of their feelings and behaviors. This can be through calm corners, guided breaks to reset, steps to resolve peer conflicts, flexible seating, or lessons to help students find their preferred […]
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By Laura Driscoll | Social Emotional Skills , Teacher Consultation
Learning often happens when we are focused on progress (over product) and we are willing to take risks. So often in our classrooms, students are nervous to make mistakes and are focused on being right. How do we intentionally create a classroom and school community that is supportive? The Center on Great Teachers and Leaders found […]
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By Laura Driscoll | Social Emotional Skills
Children’s picture books are the perfect way to introduce different social emotional skills. One of the first social emotional learning standards is teaching students to identify feelings. These four books are my favorite for showing students that we all have a range of feelings and all feelings are okay.There are affiliate links in this post. […]
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By Laura Driscoll | Group Counseling , Social Emotional Skills
I’m serious. For three years, I sent every student in my K-5 elementary school a group counseling permission slip. Hold your hats. I (and the school counselor) saw the 90% of students that returned a permission slip. You might be asking how we did this. You definitely might be asking why did we do this. You […]
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By Laura Driscoll | Group Counseling , Individual Counseling , Social Emotional Skills
Identifying feelings and understanding feelings is an essential social-emotional skill. This is always where I would start in counseling and where most social-emotional curriculums begin. If a student can’t identify how they feel, it’s awfully hard to manage those feelings. While we don’t have a shortage of feelings activities or books on feelings, I think In […]
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By Laura Driscoll | Group Counseling , Social Emotional Skills
This winter focus on giving and receiving compliments. Genuine compliments can be a great way to build a positive classroom culture. When students learn how to give and accept compliments, they are also building empathy. Teaching compliments is an easy way to build a positive community.Giving ComplimentsStart by defining what a compliment is.A compliment is […]
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By Laura Driscoll | Individual Counseling , Social Emotional Skills
Do you set goals with students in counseling? In individual counseling, I try to weave SMART goals into a student’s sessions. It helps them feel in charge of their progress and be partners in their progress. There are a number of ways that you can introduce and use goal setting. I find that the secret sauce […]
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By Laura Driscoll | Social Emotional Skills , Teacher Consultation
I don’t think mental illnesses should be used to describe our daily stresses. Someone’s serious challenge shouldn’t also describe how I feel about spilling coffee on my shirt. I’ve spent the last couple months reflecting on this, and I’m asking us all to do the same. I think it is important for the children we […]
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By Laura Driscoll | Behavior , Cognitive Behavioral Therapy , Social Emotional Skills
Calm corners are such an incredible tool to have in your counseling office or classroom. It provides a safe place for students to use and improve their self regulation skills. To make calm corners work there are a couple skills and rules that need to be in place.Going to the SpaceWhen introducing the space, it […]
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By Laura Driscoll | Individual Counseling , Social Emotional Skills
In counseling, you work with students to develop coping skills. You introduce different strategies. They practice them perfectly in role play. Then when they actually need these coping strategies, they don’t use them. They didn’t stick. Part of the reason they didn’t stick, is because we didn’t teach them effectively. With so many social emotional skills, […]
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