Monthly Guidance Lessons

Allison and Kim will be available to present one lesson to elementary classes each month based on the themes listed below. No one is required to sign up, but all elementary teachers are welcome to participate. Any month that we have assembly presentations, we will make it available to middle school also, if they wish to attend.

Academics, Careers, and Personal/Social have been selected by the district middle school counselors as areas of focus for planned guidance lessons this year. Allison and Kim decided to tie many of the elementary lessons to one of those themes.

Who: Kim and Allison (or guest speakers) to present

What: a lesson based on the monthly theme

When: usually the 3rd Thursday or Friday each month, 30 minutes

Where: your classroom, unless we have guest presenters, in which case we would set up an assembly schedule that would be on the master calendar

Why: to create an awareness of our students regarding issues that are given focus nation or world-wide

Themes:

August: Success – To begin the school year, we would like to emphasize the importance of school, being organized and prepared with supplies, setting goals, and how what we do at school today will impact our lives in the future

September: Anger Management/Conflict Resolution – The lesson will offer students ways to address their initial anger in more constructive ways. We will also have an assembly in early September to explain our Peer Mediation Program with the student mediators doing role plays to explain the process.

October: Red Ribbon Week – This lesson would focus on drug/alcohol awareness and prevention.

November: Citizenship – With November being election month, the focus will be on citizenship with its rights and responsibilities.

December: Giving/Being grateful – As the holiday season approaches, we will stress giving and have the students consider that for which they are grateful in their lives. We may be writing “Thank you” letters to share that gratefulness.

January: Goals/careers – As a New Year activity, we will discuss positive changes or goals students can make for the remainder of the school year. We might be able to include career information, or begin the discussion of a career fair we want to have later in the year.

February: Decision-making – All 3 of the focus areas will be covered as we teach grade-appropriate decision-making models to help empower students to make positive choices.

March: Test Preparation – The lesson would be supplemental support to teachers in preparing students for the CSTs and to emphasize the importance of taking it seriously, as data may reflect subsequent academic opportunities.

April: Environment --In connection with Earth Day and the discussion of “Green-ness”, the lesson would stress our responsibilities and roles in trying to provide future generations with an environment that is safe, healthy, and beautiful.

May: Reflections of this year-Looking to next -- With testing over and end of year approaching, we might have time for two presentations. (a)We would have students write about their reflections of the current school year (not the lesson time) in preparation for class visits to the next year’s grade level.

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August presentation will be Thursday or Friday of the 3rd week (August 21st or 22nd). Please see the possible times below. Email to Kim Evert your top 4 choices of times and we will try to accommodate everyone at a preferable time.

You may sign up for the August presentation until Thursday, August 14. That will give us time to set up the schedule for presentations on August 21st and 22nd. We will try to have the calendar ready for you by Monday, August 18th.

Please email Kim and list your 1st 4 choices of times—

Thursday, August 21st

_____ 8:35 – 9:05

_____ 9:15 – 9:45

_____ 9:50 – 10:20

_____ 11:00 – 11:30

_____ 11:45 – 12:15

_____ 12:30 – 1:00

_____ 1:15 – 1:45

_____ 2:00 – 2:30

Friday, August 22nd