For each of the first grade classrooms I will be teaching one counselor lesson per month. My lessons in first grade focus on being able to recognize feelings and utilize coping skills, kindness, empathy, honesty, diversity, and career exploration. If you have any questions please feel free to contact me.

For the month of September I will begin by reintroducing myself to students and explaining what my role within the school is. We will then go over expectations during lessons. Then we will be reading "Taste Your Words" by Bonnie Clark. This book explores how it feels to say mean or rude words and how it effects the people around you when you do this. We go on to discuss why it important to choose our words carefully and to use better tasting words with others. 

In the month of October we will be reviewing the Zones of Regulation that students learned in Kindergarten. We will be talking about each zone, which feelings belong there, and how can people manage each zone depending on what they are doing. We will also be speaking about how to tell which zone another person is in through body language. 

The lesson in November will center around coping skills and how we can use them to be in control over our feelings. We will be reading the book "Tilda Tries Again" to illustrate how we can use coping skills when we feel like giving up. We will talk about how important it is to try something even if its hard, and how it's ok to fail at something. 

December's focus will be on kindness. We will working as a large group to talk about kindness and what happens when we are not kind to others. I will have a paper heart and ask students to pass around the heart. When a student has the heart I will ask them to share with the class a time someone was not kind to them and then fold the heart. I will ask them to not use names so that no one is embarrassed within the class. Once the heart makes its way around the group we will examine the heart, which will be folded up into a small crumbled mess. I will then talk about what do we do when we make a mistake, apologize. I will then show how saying sorry unfolds the heart, but it isn't quite the same as it was. We then talk about how sorry is something we must do when we make a mistake, but even with sorry it can still leave wrinkles on a persons heart. We then talk about how kindness is the only way to make sure we don't leave wrinkles and talk about ways to be kind. We then end the lesson by having them decorate a heart with the people they care about most.