Random Acts of Kindness

To carry on my lesson of selflessness with the kiddos, I'm doing a random acts of kindness week. I actually started this at the beginning of the week so that we could do it before Christmas break (because I didn't actually get to see the kids until Wednesday!)

So, continuing the target of "I can show selflessness through my interactions with others", I had all of the kids' names in a bowl and I had each kiddo draw a name. They HAD to have someone else's name. And each day during the week, I did this so that they could have a different name. Each and every day, they had to do one nice thing for that individual without making it known that they were doing it. So being secretive was very important for this activity. Then, at the end of the day during advisory, the kids had to share on a piece of paper the nice thing someone in the class did FOR them. I was able to give them a grade based on this activity.

It was simple, easy, and really got the kids out of the comfort zone. If you are a community PSR, you could go to a store and do "random acts of kindness" for strangers - someone drops something on the floor, so the kiddo picks it up for them. Or they find a display knocked over, so they help pick it up. The possibilities are endless here! 

No pictures for this one, as I think it is pretty self explanatory. :) 

Selflessness

The semester is winding down for both my kiddos at school, as well as at the school I attend for my masters degree in clinical counseling. And as we head into Christmas and the New Year, I wanted to teach the kids selflessness and using it in everyday life.

The first activity I called "The Wishing Tree". Basically, we made a big Christmas tree out of butcher paper (I had a kiddo who needed a calming activity help me with all of those curls! Love it!). Then, each of them got three blank Christmas ornament patterns. They could decorate it however they wanted, but I wanted them to think of something they wished for others. I turned on Christmas music and the whole class was so focused and seemed to really enjoy the activity. Then, we shared our wishes for others and I allowed the class to put their ornaments on the tree.

Do not judge us for our Christmas tree making skills... 

Homemade Gift Guru  is where you can download the ornament pattern if you would like.

This kids did awesome with this activity. I was very pleased with the participation and effort that went into making the ornaments and the wishes that they gave for other people. We had everything from world peace to wishing that we could have a white Christmas, but that it would only snow on the grass so that nobody got hurt while they were driving.I am consistently blown away by the kids' selflessness when they are prompted... just hoping I can get their selflessness to shine through all the time!

We have 5 more schools days left until Christmas break and I'm not sure who is more ready... the kids or the teachers! I'm also done with school as of last Friday, so I've got "plenty" of free time to do things for this blog... I hope! We shall see.

Have a wonderful day!

Tattling versus Informing

Even at the level that I teach (which, if you didn't know from my about me post, I teach 7th and 8th graders), tattling is a very big problem. It disrupts the kiddo's day, it disrupts the learning environment, and it really isn't productive for anybody involved. Then why is it such a big problem?! So, continuing on the lesson plan of problem solving and conflict management, I bring to you tattling versus informing. I have also seen this lesson called "Emergency or Non Emergency" which I totally love, too, but don't most kids think that it is an emergency if little Johnny won't play with them on the playground?

So I made this poster chart (Note: this one is not mine, but I never got to snap a picture!) with the different ideas of what is tattling and what is informing.

We watched this short video regarding the differences between informing and tattling to help solidify what I just said to them (for my visual learners).

Then, I made these fun little guys so that we could apply what we learned to scenarios.

Aren't these great?! Obviously, not my pictures again but I used Informing, not Telling on mine.

So some of the scenarios I used were:

• She hit me. (Inform)
• He threw a pencil at me. (Inform)
• She called me a name. (Inform)
• He pushed me on the playground. (Inform)
• She wrote on the wall in the bathroom. (Inform)
• She is drawing on her paper instead of working. (Tattle)
• She looked at me funny. (Tattle)
• He cut in front of me in line. (Tattle)
• He took my pencil. (Tattle)
• She won't play with me at recess. (Tattle)

The kids would raise their little Tattle or Inform signs to show me what they thought the person was doing. I might even use this another way by having the kids come up to me and say these things! Maybe draw them out of a hat and act out the scenario. LOVE IT! 

Obviously, there are tons of ways to do this lesson. I love the topic because it is so relevant. 

Problem Solving Part 2

Hello all you wonderful people! So here is part 2 of my problem solving unit. I will be using this on Wednesday of this week because our school psychologist comes in and gives a lecture at the beginning of every week (Mondays, sometimes Tuesdays depending on the block schedule).

When we left Problem Solving Part 1 we had some example scenarios that the kids could rate on the scale of 1 to 5 for problem severity. But do they know how to solve those problems? It's time to teach them the steps to problem solving!

Here's a cool printable for you:

So now... maybe given an example or two and then play PROBLEM SOLVING JEOPARDY! I made this jeopardy board and I would love to share it with you. Also, there are tons of tutorials out there if you want to make your own jeopardy games. Don't you love the Internet? 

Social Skills Jeopardy

Enjoy, PSR friends!

About Me

I hope you all had a wonderful Turkey Day with your loved ones. I know mine was spectacular and I'm still so full I can hardly move. Hopefully nobody is working (self care is so important to prevent burnout in this field!) and you are taking this day as an additional day to be thankful. :) So, nothing "educational" today, but a little about me so you know exactly who is giving you your information.

My name is Jessica. I live in the great state of Idaho in the city of Meridian. I am a 25 year old wife to a fellow PSR (every single day I ask myself "How can I be more like my husband at my job?" because he is so incredibly amazing at what he does!), dog mom to two hyperactive Jack Russels (Anybody out there do doggy PSR?!), and overloaded and exhausted graduate student (not only do I work 40 hours a week, but I attend at least 2 classes a week, I do research on the side for one of my professors AND I'm starting practicum and seeing real clients in less than two months! SCARY!).

My husband and I with our oldest JRT, Gus. 

I received my B.S. from Boise State University (Go Broncos!) in Psychology and I am currently attending Northwest Nazarene University to get my masters in Clinical Counseling. I am a behavior interventionist (BI) for a school district in Idaho where I offer PSR services to middle school students with severe and persistent mental illness.

Proof that I graduated!! 

Working within the school district looks very different from working in the community. For example, children in the community get anywhere form 1 to 5 hours of PSR every week. My kiddos get up to 2040 minutes of services per week (2040 is the max, and it means they can receive all day PSR).  In my school, I teach in a classroom called the Therapeutic Learning Classroom and every other day (block schedule) I teach an 82 minute social skills class. This also looks different because I have to teach to a variety of kiddos who have different mental health needs and I'm not focusing on one kiddo individually (that comes later in the day when I follow particular kids around and use prompting, redirecting, etc. to help them overcome their mental illness in the general education population).

I am incredibly artsy (scrapbooking, crafting, home decorating, you name it, I've tried it!) and I love to snowboard. I also love clothing and fashion and maybe someday will feature some outfit of the day posts (but as you can see from above, I'm busy busy busy... so who knows).

At Grand Targee last spring break with (from L to R) my husband's best friend, my husband, me, and my father-in-law. Best spring break! 

So that's a little about me, my life, and what my work. Now back to the PSR!!

Thankfulness

I'm off this week for Thanksgiving break (Hallelujah!). But most community PSRs are probably working through the crazy holidays. You guys are awesome. Please remember to take some time on Thursday (and Friday if you're feeling frazzled) to spend time with your loved ones and appreciate all of those things that you are thankful for.

So this project is one that can be done a day before Thanksgiving, a week before Thanksgiving... whatever. My kiddos and I started doing this a month (!) before Thanksgiving to start thinking about all of the things that we can be thankful for during the holiday season, especially when things can look so gloom and doom when it is super cold out and the sun never shines. Plus, oftentimes our kiddos aren't looking forward to the holidays because of the commercial value that is placed on the holidays (and they don't get to participate in that aspect of the holidays). It is a way for them to look on the bright side and appreciate those things that they do have.

I printed off these cute little leaf patterns and put them on a foam wreath with pins. You could glue them into a circle shape and attach a ribbon or a strip of paper to the top so that the wreath could be displayed in the home.

Problem Solving Part 1

One thing I think that many children struggle with is solving problems appropriately. And lets be honest... so do many adults! The ultimate goal for the first part of this lesson is to have kids determine the size of a problem and make sure their reaction size matches the problem size.

So to start off the lesson, a short video about exaggerated reaction sizes:

Then have a discussion on if this reaction was appropriate to the problem. "The way you react to a problem should match the size of the problem. When a problem is small, your reaction should be small. When the problem is big, your reaction would be much bigger. Why might you want to make sure your reaction is appropriate to the problem? (Answer: you could get people hurt, you could use valuable resources trying to solve a small problem, you could make people upset by blowing a small problem out of proportion, the list goes on!) So talk about what constitutes little, medium, and big problems. 

Here is a quick example...

And some example scenarios:

1) During silent reading time, the person next to you is drawing. 

2) You are at lunch and you hear people talking about a fight after school. 

3) Someone keeps poking you in the shoulder with a pencil during class. 

4) A classmate keeps annoying another classmate by kicking her desk. 

5) A person from class comes up to you and calls you a name and tells you that he is going to "get you". 

6) Someone in front of you in class is chewing gum. Chewing gum during school is against the rules. 

Problem Solving Part 2 to come soon! Here's a hint... it involves the steps to problem solving and a jeopardy game! 

What is PSR?

PSR is short hand for psychosocial rehabilitation. PSR's work with children and adults with severe and persistent mental illness to develop the social and life skills necessary to become fully functioning and contributing members of society. PSR (and mental health care in general) has shifted quite a bit since the health care overhaul and the takeover by Optum Idaho. I am very lucky in that I work within the school district and I am therefore not under Optum (I am under the Medicaid umbrella, which is under the Idaho Department of Education umbrella) so I cannot speak as to my own personal experiences. My husband, however, gets to experience Optum every single day, as he is a PSR out in the community. So I know quite a bit about it, without having to experience it. I will attempt to keep my soapbox in the closet for now.

I recently attended a training from an organization formerly known as USPRA, now called PRA. I earned a certificate in Children's Psychiatric Rehabilitation and also found that there are so few resources out there, all in one place, for PSRs to gather helpful information from. Most of us were given the opportunity to shadow with an experienced PSR at our agencies, but sometimes, it seems, we were just thrust into the world of mental health with little more experience than our bachelor degrees. And in the state of Idaho, that's all you need to do psychosocial rehabilitation! SCARY!! So that's what I want this to be about - offering up lesson plans (this was huge in my training) to use with clients and their families to have the most impact during the limited amount of time you have with your clients.

Something to take into consideration... I work in a school. I teach an 82 minute social skills class to (currently) 6 students at a time. I also have a special education teacher who assists me. The skills that I present here may not be applicable to what you want to do. If there is something specific you would like to see, please let me know! I am all about broadening my knowledge base and the knowledge base of my fellow PSRs. Please email me or comment on my blog if there is anything you would like to see featured.

Have a wonderful day!