Keheley Counselors

Updates from your counselors

We have had a good time learning from Howard B. Wigglebottom in Kindergarten and First grade. Howard is the main character in three different stories and he learns a lot about listening in class, listening to his heart, and about bullies. The students not only enjoyed Howard's fun stories but also some of the songs and dances we did as well. There is a web site that has the stories about Howard, the songs, and some games for all the students to enjoy. The site is www.wedolisten.com. Look it up and have fun while learning some important life lessons!

FIFTH GRADE TRANSITION - Ms. Armbruster is working hard on getting our fifth graders ready for sixth grade! Please be sure to have your student's immunizations up to date. If you have any questions please contat Ms. Armbruster.

Keheley is ready for the CRCT! We are proud of how hard our students work and know they will do well on the CRCT this year! Help us in reminding our students to get plenty of rest and to eat a healthy breakfast.

Classroom Guidance Updates

We have had a busy fall and winter and have great things lined up for the spring. Hopefully the spring will be here soon! We are proud of the work our students do in guidance each week. Here is a brief update on what we have been doing.

Kindergarten: The kindergarten students have worked on identifying feelings and what to do with those feelings. They learned about giving over the holidays and came up with ways to give that don't cost money. More recently, we have discussed how to stay on task in class and how to be a good student.  A good student takes their time and doesn't rush. However, they don't work too slow either...it is best to work at 'turbit' speed. Ask you Kindergarten student what a 'turbit' is!

First Grade: First grade has also worked on identifying feelings and discussing ways to express emotions appropriately. We have also worked on tattling and being able to tell the difference between when not to tattle but when to report or "warn". We have also talked about careers and have explored what kind of skills are needed for different jobs. It's fun to listen to all their ideas and hopes about what career they may want when they grow up.

Second Graders:  We just finished a program called  "Barney Bear Study Skills". They met 5 of Barney Bear's friends; Pay Attention Owl, Questioning Squirrel, Soundless Deer, Try Hard Racoon, and Busy Beaver. Each animal introduced a new study skill to help our second graders do a good job in the classroom. Ask your 2nd graders about Barney and his friends, they loved this program!  Next we will be learning about Safety/ Stranger Awareness.

 

Third Graders:  In third grade we are learning about Study Skills and Test preparation which focuses on setting goals, homework tips, tracking your progress, memory boosters, tackling different kinds of tests, research tips and we will also learn about  Decision Making: the Stop, Think and Go Method.

 

Fourth Graders: We have been working in our Botvin Life Skills workbooks. We have finished leaning about Goal Setting, Self Esteem, Decision Making and Assertiveness/ I Messages. For the next couple of months we will be focusing on Social Skills/ Peer Pressure/ Bullying, Dealing with Stress and Test Taking Skills.

 

Fifth Graders: Our fifth grade students have also been working very hard in their Botvin Life Skills workbooks. We will be learning about Social Skills/

 Confrontation/Avoidance/Problem Solving/ Peer Pressure/ Bullying. We will also learn about Dealing with Stress in a positive way and Test Taking Strategies.

 

Classroom Guidance

Classroom guidance is well underway and we couldn't be more excited. Getting into the classrooms and working with all of our great students is one of our favorite things to do! We've made our introductions to all the classes and reviewed for them what a counselor at school is here to do. Here is just a brief summary of what we've done and what is to come.

Kindergarten - We have worked on having the right attitude at school and saying "I can try" rather than "I can't do it" and we have also been working on identifying our own feelings and other peoples feelings too.

First grade - We started off with friendship skills. We read "How to Lose All Your Friends" and as a class we re-wrote the story and made a class book titled "How to Keep All Your Friends". It was fun. We are also working on goal setting and making goals for first grade. The kids are coming up with some really great goals!

Second grade - We will start working on our study skills soon with Barney Bear who is always a favorite! This is a great study skills program that really reinforces good study skills in a fun way.

Third grade - We will start working on study skills and test preparation with a great program that has been offered to us through our agendas. We are very excited to have this new resource to help our third graders learn these very important skills.

Fourth grade - We will be using the Botvin Life Skills curriculum again this year and in addition to that we will be using our new agenda supplement to work on bully prevention. These two programs alone cover a wealth of information and we look forward to having many informative classroom guidance sessions through the year.

Fifth grade - We will again focus on the Botvin Life Skills curriculum as well as highlighting Internet safety topics this year. Online safety has been a rising issue and one that we can't ignore with our students. Of course with our fifth grade group we will be working on our transition to 6th grade and preparing our students to have the best transition possible.

Updated information about classroom guidance lessons and other related topics will be available on this blog or in the school newsletter. Feel free to contact us if you ever have any questions about a classroom guidance lesson.

Welcome Back

Welcome back to another great year at Keheley Elementary. As your school counselors we are excited for the opportunity to work with your children. Ms. Armbruster is our full time counselor and she works with grades 2-5. Mrs. Toole is the counselor for Kindergarten and First Grade and she is here on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursdays. Although we split grade levels we are both here to work with all of your students regardles of what grade level they are. Please do not hesitate to contact either one of us if you need to. We conduct classroom guidance lessons in every classroom on a bi-weekly basis. We also conduct small groups for students with any identified needs and see individual students as neccessary. If you ever have a concern and would like for us to talk with your student please just let us know.

We have attached the Keheley Elementary School Guidance Plan for your review to see the full range of services that we provide as your professional school counselors.Download keheley_guidance_plan_20082009.doc