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January Collaboration Committee Presentation with Links 

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January Collaboration Committee Presentation with Links 

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Jan Elementary School Counseling Collaboration Committee Presentation

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Established in 2012, the South Carolina Football Hall of Fame, Inc. honors the state of South Carolina’s greatest football leaders, and is a voice for youth,…

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October Collaboration Meeting Resources: Guest Presenter Cari Lawson 

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October Collaboration Meeting Resources: Guest Presenter Cari Lawson 

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This folder contains all materials shared during our October Collaboration Committee meeting. Everything Cari Lawson presented is included—thank you, Cari, for compiling and sharing these helpful resources! If anything appears to be missing or if you'd like to contribute additional items, feel free to reach out and we’ll get it added.

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Elementary Collab Share Folder - C. Lawson - OneDrive

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Age-appropriate strategies for identifying, reporting, and preventing bullying. Includes role-playing scenarios and empowerment activities for students.

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Worry Monster Activity for Small Groups 

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Worry Monster Activity for Small Groups 

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Use the “Feed Me Your Worries” monster box to help students express their feelings in a safe, creative way. Have each student write down a worry on a slip of paper and “feed” it to the monster. This simple activity encourages emotional expression and can lead to a group discussion about coping strategies and support.

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Compassion is an important social-emotional skill that begins to develop in early childhood and is essential for lifelong health and success. Learning compassion increases a student's sense of wellbeing and improves the learning environment for all learners. By developing empathy in children, educators lay the groundwork for long-term understanding of diversity, equity and inclusion in the classroom and in life.

EVERFI's new social and emotional learning program, The Compassion Project, is the first comprehensive, no-cost program designed to promote compassion education and help educators facilitate lessons around fundamental SEL skills for students in grades 2-4, focusing on the complex but critical skill of compassion.

EVERFI's new social and emotional learning program, The Compassion Project, is the first comprehensive, no-cost program designed to promote compassion education and help educators facilitate lessons around fundamental SEL skills for students in grades 2-4, focusing on the complex but critical skill of compassion.

With interactive online activities and robust offline lesson plans, The Compassion Project provides invaluable resources for teaching empathy in the classroom.

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The Compassion Project - Lesson Plans for Teaching Empathy & Compassion | EVERFI

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Compassion is an important social-emotional skill that begins to develop in early childhood and is essential for lifelong health and success. Learning compassion increases a student's sense of wellbeing and improves the learning environment for all learners. By developing empathy in children, educators lay the groundwork for long-term understanding of diversity, equity and inclusion in the classroom and in life.

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Overcoming Obstacles | Lesson 1: Adapting to Change

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Kid-friendly tips for staying safe online. Covers basic internet safety rules, appropriate website usage, and what to do if something doesn't feel right.

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Pop three bubbles every six hours as needed for stress relief. It's not the load that breaks you down, it's the way in which you carry it.' A simple, fun way to support emotional wellness in schools.

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SCDE Educational Stability Presentation 

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SCDE Educational Stability Presentation 

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Small Group Counseling Parent Letter.pdf

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Monthly calendar of family activities that support learning and emotional development. Includes conversation starters, educational games, and weekend project ideas.

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60 Parent Engagement Ideas To Boost School Involvement - Possip

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Looking for ways to increase family involvement? Here are a few ways you can positively impact parent engagement at your school

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Welcome to our supplemental Social Emotional Learning Activities page!

As you will see below, many of the supplemental SEL activities and lesson plans include characters from our game-based, social emotional learning interventions. And when you use the online programs with your students, these activities will reinforce the learning that occurs during game play.

These supplemental resources - lessons, activities, and worksheets - are in the following SELskill areas: Communication, Cooperation, Emotion Regulation, Empathy, Impulse Control, and Social Initiation.

These resources are age-appropriate for elementary and middle school students and are typically used in a classroom or a small group setting. And in most cases, if materials are required for the activity, they are items that you already have in your classroom or office.
Note: Please share this page on your school website so other educators may also benefit.
Social Emotional Learning at Home

Additional Resources for Social Emotional Learning

Our classroom management plan is a step-by-step guide and includes proven strategies, tips and printables for elementary school teachers, and it covers four key components for establishing a successful, well-managed classroom.

These free downloadable posters will decorate your classroom and be great teaching resources, reinforcing social and emotional skills in your classroom and reminding students to practice their skills like emotion regulation, impulse control, empathy, and more.

Social Emotional Learning Quotes

For each of the topics below, we have curated a list of quotes. You can incorporate these quotes in your social emotional learning lessons, add them to social media images, create classroom posters, or write one on your whiteboard each day.

Need Something More Engaging And Effective For A Few Students?

Simply request a FREE Centervention educator account and start using our online programs!

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95 Free Social Emotional Learning Activities

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95 free social emotional learning activities, worksheets, and lessons to help students in elementary and middle school. Most are no-prep and ready to go.

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Welcome to the SC Career Kids Resource Hub. Here you can find all the necessary forms, brochures, and information you need to participate in our programs. Explore the sections below to access and download our resources.

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Healthier Me: Intro to Wellness | EVERFI

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This new health & wellness course teaches students about many of the factors that help to keep their minds and bodies healthy. The curriculum takes an approach that focuses on overall physical, emotional, and social wellness will give students the tools they need to make healthy choices. Through a story-based narrative and interactive exercises, students explore topics like nutrition, exercise, hygiene, sleep, and the importance of healthy mindfulness and social connection.

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This visual guide titled “How to Use ChatGPT to Master Excel” offers school counselors a practical resource for enhancing their data skills. It breaks down how ChatGPT can support work tasks. This tool can help counselors save time, improve data accuracy, and make informed decisions to better support students.

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Set up six simple stations for students:

Positive Affirmations – Students read or write uplifting messages.

Drawing Emotions – Provide art supplies to express feelings through drawing.

Movement Break – Include stretching or light exercises.

Gratitude Journaling – Students list things they’re thankful for.

Story Time – Offer quiet reading or audio books.

Mindful Breathing – Create a calm space for guided breathing.

Rotate small groups through each station to build emotional awareness and coping skills.

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Tips for parents on how to effectively communicate with teachers and school staff. Includes email templates, conference preparation checklists, and suggested questions to ask during meetings.

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Effective communication is essential for building school-family partnerships. It constitutes the foundation for all other forms of family involvement in education.

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Quick 5-minute mindfulness exercises perfect for classroom transitions or when students need to reset. Includes deep breathing techniques, guided imagery, and simple stretching exercises appropriate for grades K-5.

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5 Mindfulness Exercises for Kids 🌟😊 | Cosmic Kids

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Shine a Light on Your School Counseling Program Results with a Flashlight Presentation

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Shine a Light on Your School Counseling Program Results with a Flashlight Presentation

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Hatching Results - School Counselor Training

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Shine a Light on Your School Counseling Program Results with a Flashlight Presentation — Hatching Results - School Counselor Training

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Showcasing the impact and results of your school counseling program is an essential tool for sharing successes, advocating for your program, and creating systemic changes.   Rather than attempting to highlight every effort, we encourage school counselors to adopt the “Flashlight”

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Flashlight Template for Tier 1 or Tier 2

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This school counseling referral form is for students experiencing sudden and concerning changes in academics, attendance, behavior, personal/family concerns, or those in crisis.

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Sample School Counseling Referral Form .pdf

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As we prepare to welcome students back, I wanted to share a fun and uplifting idea—a bulletin board that says, “It’s a Joy to See You Again!” featuring bright balloons, cheerful colors, and a friendly character. It’s a simple way to create a warm, inviting atmosphere that lets students know how excited we are to see them.

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Help students identify and express their emotions with this interactive feelings chart. Perfect for morning meetings or individual counseling sessions. Students can move their name marker to show how they're feeling each day.

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Help reduce test anxiety with these kid-friendly strategies. Includes memory tricks, positive self-talk examples, and relaxation techniques specifically designed for young learners.

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Wouldn't it be nice if we could eliminate standardized testing from our educational system? I hope that one day that will be a reality. Until then, regardless of how we feel about state testing, we want to make sure that we are preparing our students to be as successful as possible on the state test. One way you can do that is to teach your students effective test-taking strategies.

In this blog post, I will share seven of my favorite test taking strategies for upper elementary students.

What are test taking strategies?

A test taking strategy is a specific strategy that will help your students be successful on a standardized test. It's important for students to realize that the reading they do on standardized tests is not like the reading they do in real life. This means we need to teach them strategies that are specific to taking standardized tests.

Why do I need to teach test taking strategies to my students?

I get it. I don't like standardized testing very much either. Spending so much time focused on test prep can be frustrating for both teachers and students. Standardized testing is an unfair and inauthentic way to assess student learning. But unfortunately, it is currently a part of our educational system. Even if we don't agree with it, we want students to feel prepared and confident on test day. This means we need to make sure our students are equipped with strategies that will help them succeed on their state test.

How do I teach test taking strategies to my students?

You should teach test taking strategies to your students in the exact same way you teach everything else. In small bite-sized lessons with a clear objective and plenty of time for students to practice independently before test day.

Some test prep strategies I will teach whole group and there are other strategies that might need to be taught in small group because not every student needs that particular strategy.

Here are 7 test taking strategies that will help your students prepare for their end-of-year state test.

Strategy #1: Know the Elements of a Standardized Test

Before you go all in on on test prep and spend hours reading practice passages and answering multiple-choice questions and having students bubble in answer sheets all day every day, make sure students understand the elements that will be included on your state-specific standardized test.

Familiarity is an important part of test prep. Identifying the elements of your state's standardized test should be one of the first test-prep lessons you teach. You don't want any surprises on test day so even if your students are familiar with reading passages and answering multiple choice questions, you want them the understand as much of what they will see on test day.

One of the best ways to teach this strategy is to find a previously released state test and go through each element. Let students know what they will see on the test and you can also explain how understanding the format of the test can help them best prepare for test day.
Things you might want to point out to your students:

The number of reading passages they will see

The genres of reading passages they will most likely see

The number of questions per passage and the total number of questions they'll see on the test

An example of how the directions are worded and what they need to pay attention to in the directions

What the test booklet might look like and if there is a separate answer sheet

How and where they will record their answers

What support material they will have access to (scratch paper, dictionaries, online tools etc.)

The more students know about the test, the easier it will be for them to prepare for it in the weeks leading up to the test.

Strategy #2: Pace Yourself

This is a strategy you will want to teach your students before you do a ton of practice tests. This will give students a chance to actually apply this strategy while they practice.

The goal of this strategy is to help students create a pacing plan to use on test day. You don't want your students to run out of time, and you also don't want them to feel rushed and quickly read through the test and answer the questions.

The best way to relieve any sort of time-limit worries is to break it down and create a pacing plan.

In order to help students do this, you'll need to know how much time students have to take the test and how many passages are included on the test.

This is how I teach students to pace themselves.

The first thing we do is identify how much time they want to have at the end to review their answer choices, look over the test, and double-check everything before they turn it in. I typically suggest students save 30 minutes at the end to review the test.

Now you need to subtract that time from the total time they have. When I taught in Texas, students had four hours to take the STAAR test so we would take 4 hours and subtract 30 minutes. Now we know that we have 3 hours and 30 minutes to spend taking the test and getting through all the passages/questions.

The next thing you need to do is tell students how many passages they can expect to see on the test. If there are 5 passages, you will take the 3 hours and 30 minutes and divide it by five. This tells you how much time students can spend reading each passage and answer each question set.

If students have 3 hours and 30 minutes to get through 5 passages this means they can spend 42 minutes per passage and question set.

This helps give students a general time frame to stick to for each section of the text.

NOTE: I don't like to break it down much more than this. There is no need to tell students how much time to spend on each question. Some passages will be shorter/quicker to read. Some questions will require less thinking/searching for evidence. Students don't need to figure out the exact amount of time to spend on each question. That would just stress them out. But having a general idea of how much time to spend on each passage/question set can be helpful.

Strategy #3: Right There Questions vs. Thinking Questions

I like to teach students to categorize questions into two different types. Right There Questions and Thinking Questions.

Right There Questions are the questions with answers that can be found in the text. The answer is literally RIGHT THERE. Students know that if it is a right there question, they are going to have to go back and reread a portion of the text to figure out the answer. For example:

What happened after...

Who was responsible for...

According to the map on page...

Thinking Questions are the questions that don't have answers directly found in the text. Students will need to THINK in order to come up with the answer. Students will have to combine text evidence with their own personal knowledge and critical thinking skills in order to come up with the answer. For example:

Which example is the best summary of the selection?

What can you infer about _____?

What is the theme of this selection?

Why did the author include....

We often tell students to go back to the text to find their answer, but not every answer can be found directly in the text. Some students will spend an excessive amount of time searching for answers that can't even be found in the text.

Make sure students know the difference between Right There and Thinking Questions. This will help them come up with an effective plan to answer each question.

Strategy #4: Pay Attention to Word Choice Used in the Questions

This one is important. We want students to pay close attention to the words used in the multiple-choice questions. Often times there are words used that can act as a clue and direct students to a specific section of text where they could find the answer. Or there might be a specific word used that could help students eliminate an answer choice.

I would encourage you to look through your state's specific test and see which words you see frequently pop up in questions.

Here are some that you might see on your state test that you'll want to point out to students.

Most or Best - I bet your students will see this one on the test. When students see these words, it's important that they realize they are asking them to determine the highest quality option or the answer choice that is better than the others. This means that there might be TWO answer choices taht could be correct, but students are being asked to select the BEST.

Based on (or according to) - When students see this phrase used in a question, the question is telling them where to go in the text to find the answer. Make sure students know they should return to this portion of the text. It's important for students to realize that there might be other pieces of evidnece that they could use to answer this question, but the test creator only wants them to use the information located in a certain section of text.

Suggests or Supports - When students see these words they are a clue that they are looking for a detail in the text that is connected to the idea mentioned in the question. They are basically looking for the text evidence that supports what is mentioned in the question.

These are just some words you might want to point out to your students. The goal of this strategy is for students to think like the "test creator" when they see important signal words used in test questions.

Strategy #5: Answer the Question Using Your Own Words First

This strategy is great and works on any type of standardized test. You want to teach your students to answer the question using their own words before they look at the multiple-choice options. Sometimes students can be distracted or influenced by the multiple-choice options. In fact, test creators will intentionally throw in "distractor" questions with the intent of trying to distract students from the right answer.

To help your students feel confident in their answer choice, have them get in the habit of covering up the multiple-choice answer options.

Then read the question.

Then answer the question using their own words.

Then see how their answer compares to the multiple-choice options.

If they don't see an answer choice that matches up with their own answer, then this means they need to go back and reread a portion of the text and look for different evidence.
I f you'd like to try this strategy for free, you can grab the free download in my TPT store.

Strategy #6: Don't Forget to Bubble In!

While this may seem like a silly strategy to spend time on, it is extremely important. And I can't tell you the number of standardized tests I've proctored where I've seen students make mistakes bubbling on their answer sheet.

I always like to tell my students that it doesn't matter if they know all the correct answers on the test, if they don't know how to correctly bubble in the answers on the answer sheet they won't get credit.

If your students are taking a paper-pencil test and will be filling in bubbles, then do at least one explicit test prep lesson on how to correctly fill in the bubbles... even fifth graders can forget how to do this part correctly.

Strategy #7: A Pep-Talk for Confidence

I've saved the best for last. This is my favorite test-prep strategy to teach students. Ultimately we want our students to feel confident on test day. One of the best ways to do that is to teach them how to give themselves a pep-talk. That way in the days leading up to the test, or on actual test day, students know the words to use in their self-talk to pump themselves up for the test.

When you teach this lesson, you can have students brainstorm sayings, mantras, or phrases they can repeat to themselves on test day. You can create a giant anchor chart with all their ideas. You can even have students write a letter to themselves or put their favorite positive saying on a post-it to stick on their desk.

Anything that will remind students to think positively about the test.

Here are a few phrases you might want to have your students repeat to themselves before test day:

I am prepared for this test.

I know I am a great reader.

I have worked hard and I am ready.

No matter how I do, I am really proud of all my hard work this year.

Hopefully you find these seven test taking strategies helpful and are excited about teaching them to your students. If you'd like even more test taking strategies similar to these, you can check out my 15 Test Taking Strategies resource on TPT. It includes all of these lessons, plus 8 more.

Happy Teaching!

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7 Test Taking Strategies for Elementary Students

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Wouldn't it be nice if we could eliminate standardized testing from our educational system? I hope that one day that will be a reality. Until then, regardless of how we feel about state testing, we want to make sure that we are preparing our students to be as successful as possible on the state test.

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Monthly reading challenges and rewards system to encourage regular reading habits. Can be customized for different grade levels and reading abilities.

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January 2023

Professional Development on KnowItAll!

The month of January is "Reach Your Potential Month"! Throughout the month, learn how you can reach your full potential by exploring our Professional Development and Career Explorations! collections. In addition, check out the January Blog to stay up to date on new content as well as other monthly observances.

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January 2023 The month of January is "Reach Your Potential Month"! Throughout the month, learn how you can reach your full potential by exploring our Professional Development and Career Explorations! collections. In addition, check out the January Blog to stay up to date on new content as well as other monthly observances.

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Streamlined career search and discovery for students and job seekers. Includes a built-in interest assessment and access to training, education, and job opportunities. Straightforward, easy-to-read one-page career reports help guide individuals' next move on their road to a satisfying career.

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ASCA-Aligned Elementary Counseling Lessons: 21st Century Skills

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Hatching Results Presentation Board of Education 05.17.23.pdf

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Check out this US Letter designed by jasmine.arellano.

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Check out this US Letter designed by jasmine.arellano.

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Check out this US Letter designed by jasmine.arellano.

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Check out this US Letter designed by jasmine.arellano.

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Consider creating a bulletin board like this one titled “2025–2026: This Is Your Year To…” filled with motivational phrases that encourage students to dream big, take risks, and be their best selves. It’s a simple yet powerful way to set a positive tone and inspire growth from day one.

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A simple sign like “Thank you for your commit-MINT and involve-MINT in your child’s education” paired with a bowl of mints can go a long way in making parents feel seen and appreciated. It’s a lighthearted, meaningful way to build positive connections and foster a supportive school community.

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This bulletin board titled "How Are You Feeling?" is a great tool for helping students identify and express their emotions. Each flag features a labeled emotion with a matching illustration—perfect for promoting emotional awareness and daily check-ins in your counseling space.

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Design a bulletin board that normalizes emotions and teaches students how to manage them. Use colorful cartoon faces to represent feelings like anger, sadness, joy, fear, and more. Under each face, include a short explanation of the emotion’s purpose and healthy coping strategies. This board can be a daily visual reminder that all emotions are valid—and manageable.

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For South Carolina School Counselors and Career Specialists

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For South Carolina School Counselors and Career Specialists

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This document from Hatching Results provides tips for developing effective pre/post-tests, categorized by the type of learning outcome being assessed:

Attitudes: Focus on changes in beliefs, feelings, or opinions. Questions should be declarative statements where students rate their agreement using a Likert Scale. A "neutral" option is generally avoided to encourage a decision, though "unsure" can be included if students might lack prior knowledge.

Skills: Assess students' ability to apply knowledge to a scenario.

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The activity guides users through developing and testing a school counseling plan to address a data-driven student need through evidence-based practice.

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Building Foundational Soft Skills Collaboration Presentation Slides