I had a great intern this past semester, and I made good use of her. I’d been reading wonderful things about counselors doing book clubs (see here and here) and really wanted to give it a try. To make the most of the group time, the group was created to 1) increase school motivation/effort and 2) improve literacy skills. At…
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CBT With Elementary Students: Introducing the Power of Our Thoughts
I’m very passionate about the power and importance of our thoughts. As a child therapist, I utilized CBT more than any other modality. Though it’s difficult to do that kind of work as a school counselor, I certainly implement aspects of it. I’ve seen how powerful it can be for students to identify unhelpful thoughts and replace them with helpful…
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CBT Strategies with Elementary Students: Examining Thoughts
Our brains are powerful. And on occasion, they lie to us! Sometimes, the thoughts in our mind just aren’t true. Often, when our students are experiencing distress, it’s due to unhelpful and untrue thoughts in their minds. This means one of our jobs in working with students is to help them examine their own thoughts. We can do this by…
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College Awareness Week
While I was in the throws of coordinating and administering a standardized assessment to about 450 of our students (that was going to be online…for the first time…using only 30 computers), I learned that our district was about to celebrate College Awareness week and that every school had to participate in some way or another. College preparedness and development is…
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‘Growing Up With a Bucket Full of Happiness’ Book Review
This post contains affiliate links. Like many other counselors (or people in general), I went…
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‘Socially Speaking’ Board Game Review
This post contains affiliate links. A previous counselor at my school purchased (but never used) The Socially Speaking Board Game . When I was struggling to find truly engaging activities to do with a 3rd grade boys social skills group, I took a look at this game. I’m so glad I did! This game is a real win. Players travel around…
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