Welcome back to another episode of School Counseling Simplified! I love following themes on the podcast, and for the month of March, I'm taking you through my lesson plans STEP by STEP!
Having a structured plan leads to less stress, less last-minute scrambling, and more time focusing on students. While every counselor's approach will be unique, I've found that creating a curriculum map for the entire year and breaking down my monthly plans by tier has been incredibly helpful.
These lesson plans are based on trends I've noticed and what typically works during this time of year, but of course, your plans will shift depending on your students' needs. My goal is to give you ideas and inspiration for your own program!
Grab my FREE curriculum map & plans in the resource section below to help you plan the remainder of this year!
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The second semester is a great time to revisit emotional recognition and self-regulation strategies. One of my favorite ways to teach this is using "temperatures" to help students gauge their emotions.
Introduce the concept using a "temperature check" (cool = calm and ready to learn, hot = angry, overwhelmed, or high-energy).
Have students act out different temperatures/zones to engage them physically and set the tone for the lesson.
Discussion Activity:
Conduct a gallery walk with images of kids in different emotional states.
Students move around the room and identify which emotions/temperatures each image represents.
Main Activity:
Introduce coping strategies and split students into small groups.
Each group learns about a different self-regulation strategy (deep breathing, talking it out, etc.) and teaches it to the class.
Reflection:
Wrap up with a self-reflection journal prompt to help students process what they learned.
I hope this helps you plan your March lessons with confidence! Stay tuned as I continue breaking down my step-by-step lesson plans this month.
Resources mentioned:
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More About School Counseling Simplified:
School Counseling Simplified is a podcast offering easy to implement strategies for busy school counselors. The host, Rachel Davis from Bright Futures Counseling, shares tips and tricks she has learned from her years of experience as a school counselor both in the US and at an international school in Costa Rica.
You can listen to School Counseling Simplified on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, and more!
