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Online calendar to pick a time to chat via phone or on Zoom.

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Book an Appointment with Kasuun/Spring Hill Counseling: Welcome to the Kasuun and Spring Hill counseling and mental health services booking page! This is where you can request a meeting time with either Ms. Krista Rice, Ms. Kim Duke, or Ms. Toni Elmer. Please make sure you select the correct provider for your school. We are so glad you are here to speak with us! At this time all scheduled appointments will take place via zoom. After you have booked your time you will receive an email with instructions on how to attend your meeting.

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book appointment with kasuun/spring hill counseling

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book apopintment with personal meetings and services/counselling

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Book an Appointment with Kasuun/Spring Hill Counseling - Personal Meetings and Services/Counselling

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Book an Appointment with Kasuun/Spring Hill Counseling: Welcome to the Kasuun and Spring Hill counseling and mental health services booking page! This is where you can request a meeting time with either Ms. Krista Rice, Ms. Kim Duke, or Ms. Toni Elmer. Please make sure you select the correct provider for your school.

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Check out this how to on signing into my classroom where I will post materials and Zoom links for short sessions on behavior/social skills and other resources geared towards parents/caregivers.

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Here's the direct link once you've joined.

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I will start posting materials and articles here (as well as on my Google Classroom).

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I will start posting materials and articles here (as well as on my Google Classroom).

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Check out Zoo U - free through the end of June!

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Do you work with students who have extreme reactions to trivial problems, who blurt out in class, or who have trouble making friends?

You can help them with Zoo U®, a behavioral intervention developed with funding from the US Department of Education and used by 1000's of educators across the country.

In the program, students work towards mastery of six key social and emotional skills:

Communication

Cooperation

Emotion regulation

Empathy

Impulse control

Social initiation

After each student completes six short scenes at the beginning of the game, you will have access to a personalized report that identifies their strengths and weaknesses. Students then continue on to play 30 intervention scenes, and as they practice within the game, they become more confident and improve behavior in real life!

From your educator dashboard, you will be able to monitor progress as well as see how much time the student spends on the intervention.

The entire Zoo U social skills game takes 10-15 hours to complete; however, we encourage you to have students play one or two times a week for approximately 30 minutes per session. This will allow them to reflect on what they have learned during each scene and integrate their newly acquired skills. And at that rate, students will complete the entire intervention over the course of a semester or by the end of the school year.

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Do you work with students who have extreme reactions to trivial problems, who blurt out in class, or who have trouble making friends? You can help them with Zoo U®, a behavioral intervention developed with funding from the US Department of Education and used by 1000's of educators across the country.

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Audio stories for kids that focus on emotional awareness. [FREE]

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Listen to the newest epsiode of The Imagine Neighborhood, a kind and kooky kids podcast that helps families talk about the things that matter with the people that matter most!

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SEL Kernels - Executive Functioning Games

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SEL Kernels - Executive Functioning Games

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Games kids can play online to help with executive functioning skills.  Three games: focus, remember, stop & think [FREE]

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Why Do This?

If students practice and build executive function skills, they can organize their thinking and behavior to meet goals in order to engage deeply in learning with each other.

When You Might Use This Practice

Integrated into daily schedules as a routine or used as-needed throughout the day

During a designated SEL block of 10-15 minutes per day for Kernels practice or as time allows

During a morning meeting, a middle school advisory period, class transitions, after recess, or at the end of the day

Time Required

Materials

Learning Objective

Students will:

Practice and build executive function skills

Additional Supports

SEL Competencies

Self-Awareness

Self Management

Social Awareness

Relationship Skills

Responsible Decision-Making

Reflection Before the Practice

How well do you focus, remember all the things you have to do, or practice self-control when faced with a challenging or tempting situation? What strategies and practices help you to use these skills (e.g, mindfulness, making a to-do list, taking deep breaths)?

Note: Click here to download and print a card version of this practice that can be added to the other Brain Games practices to make an easy-to-hand-held collection. See the SEL Kernels pack for additional activities.
Overview of Brain Games

Big Idea

Playing Brain Games helps us to build our "brain powers," or executive function (EF) skills.

Executive function (EF) skills are the mental processes required to focus, plan, and control behavioral responses in order to reach a goal.

They're important because... They help students to listen carefully, follow directions, use self-control, and think flexibly. These basic skills are foundational for academic achievement, interpersonal skills, perseverance, and critical thinking.

Three Brain Powers

Focus: The ability to sustain attention and ignore distractions when needed.

Remember: The ability to keep track of, update, and use information over short periods of time.

Stop and Think: The ability to control impulses and to "think before you act."

Where Can I Find the Brain Games?

Below is a list of Brain Games by Power:

Tips for Success

Before playing, take time to introduce the three powers and discuss why they're important. Practice the hand signals together, and brainstorm when they can be used at school/home.

Model with a small group first. Try out the game with a group of 2-3 students while the rest watch.

During and after the game, talk about feelings that arise. Help students recognize feelings are a normal part of school and life.

Celebrate Brain Powers all day. Talk about them and how they're used throughout the day, and notice and celebrate when students use them!

After the Activity, Debrief (more specific questions on each game practice)

What was hard or easy about this game?

What skills did you use to play this game?

Did you use any strategies to play this game?

When are other times during the day that we need to use these skills and strategies? At home? At school? On the playground?

Over the Year...

Ask deeper and more meaningful follow-up questions in your debrief. Ask students to share why it might be hard or easy to focus, remember, or stop and think in the context of real life situations.

Have students volunteer to lead the games.

Ask students to create their own adaptations and share them with the class.

Break students into teams to play games and develop cooperation skills where possible.

Adapt the hand signals to fit the interests and age groups of your students (e.g., turn fist next to temple as if switching on a part of the brain = Focus Power for older students).

Source

This practice is part of the SEL Kernels project developed by the EASEL Lab at Harvard University.

Reflection After the Practice

Do you observe changes in your students' ability to focus, remember directions, control their impulses, or to think before they act? Which games are more challenging for students? Which games are easiest for them? Why?

Evidence That It Works

Children who are able to effectively manage their thinking, attention, and behavior are also more likely to have better grades and higher standardized test scores.

Why Does It Matter?

Children use cognitive regulation skills whenever faced with tasks that require concentration, planning, problem solving, coordination, conscious choices among alternatives, or overriding a strong internal or external desire-all key skills for behavioral and academic success.

These skills enable children to prioritize and sequence behavior (e.g., put their pants on before their shoes), inhibit dominant or familiar responses in favor of a more appropriate one (e.g., raise their hand rather than blurt out the answer), maintain task-relevant information in mind (e.g., remember the teacher's request to wash hands and then put coats on before going outside), resist distractions, switch between task goals, use information to make decisions, and create abstract rules and handle novel situations.

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Brain Games: A Set of SEL Kernels Practices

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Students practice and build executive function skills in whole-class games.

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Educational resources available on TV and online. [FREE]

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Alaska Public Media remains committed to ensuring that all kids statewide have equitable access to high-quality educational media. This fall, our weekday At Home Learning schedule continues with programming targeted towards different school-age groups. This TV schedule was developed to help schools and districts bridge the digital divide and provide equitable access to learning for all students at home, regardless of access to the internet or computers.

Available 24 hours a day and 7 days a week, this schedule offers educational programming across a spectrum of learning domains including literacy, STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) and social emotional learning for early learners.

Educational resources linked to the PBS KIDS 24/7 broadcast schedule are aligned to different educational themes each week. These include printable weekly activity packets for children PreK-K and Gr. 1-2, a Learn at Home destination on PBS KIDS for Parents, and a Learning Resources for New School Routines Collection on PBS LearningMedia for educators.

To discover this week's At Home Learning programming, check out the curated schedule and then tune-in to PBS Kids 24/7.

Ways to watch PBS KIDS 24/7:

Over the air 7.4

GCI 97

MTA 14

Dish 10

YouTube TV

Online

PBS Kids Video app

Beginning Monday, September 7, 2020, you'll find the WORLD Channel At-Home Learning Service, a partnership of PBS and WGBH designed to supplement learning for middle and high-school students, weekdays 8 AM - 1 PM Alaska Time on 360 North .

Programs within the WORLD At-Home Learning Service are supplemented with additional resources from PBS LearningMedia which were developed based on feedback from educators and aligned to curriculum standards in every state and contextualized for educational use.

These resources include grab-and-go activities, lesson plans, interactive lessons and media that illustrate specific topics or themes and support materials across subjects.

For At-Home Learning resources, visit PBS LearningMedia .

To discover this week's At Home Learning programming, check out the curated schedule and then tune-in on 360 North:

* At-Home Learning will not be broadcast on 360 North Oct 12-16

Ways to watch 360 North:

Over the air 7.3

GCI 15

MTA 302

Dish 9

Online

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Alaska Public Media is committed to connecting educators with quality educational content and teaching resources in response to the current school closures.

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Working on Social Skills while watching TV

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Working on Social Skills while watching TV

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Although you still won't want to have your children in front of a screen all day, here are some ways to really get some good social skills learning opportunities in while watching TV!