Mix It Up Day....finally a SUCCESS!

Three years ago, I began my career as a school counselor.  I attempted to facilitate Mix It Up Day during this first year, and it was a disaster! I had great intentions, but the planning was not properly executed.  Mix It Up Day is a day that students eat at a different table with different classmates as a means to get to meet a new friend and break down social boundaries.  This may seem like no big deal to plan, but lunch time is the craziest time of the school day.  It is their "free" time and a time to meet with their friends.  This day is typical met with resistance and hesitation, and sometimes tears from the younger ones.  During my first year, we used different letter stamps to identify the table a student would sit it.  The students trickled in faster than my hands could stamp; FAIL.  It was chaos, with students running around and sitting wherever.  It made me want to run away and hide.  But like any driven, crazy person, I decided to give it a second try the following year.  This time I had my student group, the Peacemakers assist in engaging students in conversation and directing students to their table.  We used different colored stickers to identify the table, and it went well for the first lunch, but the others were again a FAIL!!  I think EVERYONE was dreading Mix It Up Day this year....I know I was.

I thought about it hard, and debated whether or not it was worth trying again.  But I know this activity can be so beneficial, even for a short amount of time.  I decided to try it during Red Ribbon Week.  Some things I did differently this year:

1.  I created a plan that focused on every area that did not work in the past.  The biggest issue was how to quickly identify the table that the students sit at.  Because we incorporated Character Counts with Red Ribbon Week, I used our seven character traits as a label for each table.

2.  I emailed the teachers to discuss the table identification with their students, and tell them what table they would sit it.
3  I promoted it!
4.  I used colors and character traits as identification tools.  This was especially helpful for the young students.  It was easy for them to remember what color table they had to sit it.
5.  I met with the café staff to have them assist in getting students to their table.  They also helped facilitate and and questions with the tables.
6.  I had ice breaker questions at teach table.

I bought different colored table cloths at the dollar store and put them on the tables.  I then printed out the character traits and taped them to the end of the tables.

The students had a great day! The staff had a good time.  No one wanted to rip their hair out.

I even had a 6th grade student, who are typically resistant to this day, say "This was so much fun! Can we do it again?!"

I have decided to do Mix It Up Day two more times this year.  I finally figured out how to make it work.

2012 Mix It Up Day at Lunch

Mix it Up Day is an activity to encourage students to identify, question, and cross social boundaries.  Students will move out of their comfort zone and connect with someone new over lunch.  When students interact with those whoa re different from them, biases and misconceptions can fall away. 

Mix It Up Day at Lunch will take place on Tuesday, October 23

Students will sit at a designated table based on their last name:

A-C            Respect                        Red

D-F            Responsibility            Orange

G-I            Courage                        Yellow

J-L            Kindness                        Green

M-O            Self-Discipline            Blue

P-R            Integrity                        Purple

S-U            Perseverance                        White

V-Z            Good Judgement            Black

Please let your students know about this day and the procedures.  The younger grades may feel apprehensive about the activity, so encourage and speak positively about Mix It Up Day.  Inform them of the table that they will be sitting at.  I put a color with the table to help the younger students remember where they will be sitting.

The staff members will encourage conversation and participation in the ice break questions that will be on each table!

Poster for Students

2012 Mix It Up Day at Lunch

Tuesday, October 23 at lunch

Sit with different students, and make a new friend!

Find the letter that your last name starts with on the sign, and sit at that table.  Each table has a color tablecloth to help!

A-C         Respect                           Red

D-F         Responsibility                  Orange

G-I         Courage                           Yellow

J-L         Kindness                           Green

M-O         Self-Discipline                  Blue

P-R         Integrity                           Purple

S-U         Perseverance                  White

V-Z         Good Judgement         Black

Red Ribbon Week

Last week, my school celebrated Red Ribbon Week with the help of my student group, the Peacemakers.  The Peacemakers are a group of students that promote positive behavior and relationships through school wide activities.  This week was a huge success, especially with our plans being implemented according to plan!  I got an idea from the website, corner on character, and Barbara has some amazing ideas.  She decided to incorporate Character Counts and Red Ribbon Week, and I thought I'd do the same.  Our Logo for this year was "Character is my anti Drug."  I created a bulletin board with the core character traits that I focus on in my monthly classroom lessons and attached a superhero to each trait.  I hoped this would attract students attention to connect character traits to superheros!  The weekly activities are listed below:

Character Is Our Anti-Drug

October 22-25

Monday, October 22: Kick-off Assembly Character is Our Anti-Drug.  Socks off to Drugs. Students will wear silly socks to school.

Tuesday, October 23: Friends Don’t Let Friends Do Drugs.  Students will participate in Mix It Up Day at lunch.

Wednesday, October 24: Hugs not Drugs.  Students will bring in their favorite stuffed animal or picture of someone they love.

Thursday, October 25: Character Is Our Super Power.  Students will wear red, and  carry their Super Power masks, and participate in a school wide march, “Footsteps Worth Following” to show their power over drugs!

Character Trait Poster Contest: Each classroom will participate in a poster contest in which they will decorate and design a poster for their assigned character trait.  These will be used in the march on Friday!

Our assembly went so well! The Peacemaker students spoke at the assembly and held up posters to promote the activities for each day.  They worked very hard to practice their speech.  

Each class was assigned a character trait.  At the assembly, a student, or group had to state what the character trait meant in their own words.  There were some creative demonstrations.

We finished with the song "Who I am" by Will.i.am for all the grades.  I was a little nervous about playing it for the 5th and 6th, but they were so into it.  I think it helped that I played a version that didn't show Sesame street.  I was so happy to see all of the students dancing and singing at the end of the assembly.

After the song, each student signed a pledge created by the art teacher, titled "Footsteps Worth Following"

Each class participated in a poster contest, being assigned a different character trait to display.

Every student made a super hero mask with their choice of a character trait in art class.  They looked awesome as the students wore them during our march.

On Thursday, we had a school wide march around the school, called Footsteps Worth Following.  Huge success! The peacemakers shouted chants such as "boo to drugs" and "it's up to me to be drug free"

To ensure that parents were aware, I sent home a letter, and an activity for them to write a character trait that describes their child, another idea from Barbara at corner on character . If you are interested in viewing this, please contact me.  I have posted pictures of the home activity at the bottom of the post.

 Chracter is My Anti Drug

Dear Parent/Guardian,

We’re celebrating National Character Counts Week and Red Ribbon Week from October 22-25, with the theme: Character Is My Anti-Drug.  What we’d like from you is a drawing or paragraph in the template below showing us your child’s super power.  To assist in this activity, ask yourself some of the following questions: What character trait do you consider your child’s super power? What is he or she passionate about? What is he or she really good at?  We would like to see these back on October 22.  Here is a list of character traits that you may find useful:

Respect

Responsibility

Integrity

Courage

Kindness

Self Discipline

Good Judgement

Below is the list of National Character Counts and Red Ribbon Week Events:

Monday, October 22: Character is our Anti-Drug Assembly and Crazy Sock Day. Students can wear their favorite pair of socks!

Tuesday, October 23: Friends Don’t Let Friends Do Drugs.  Mix It Up Day at lunch.

Wednesday, October 24: Hugs not Drugs.  Students will bring in their favorite stuffed animal or picture of someone they love.

Thursday, October 25: Character Is Our Super Power.  Students will wear red, and their Super Power mask to participate in a school wide march, “Footsteps Worth Following.”

In order to make sure that things went smoothly, I made sure to have EVERYTHING planned out.  I emailed the staff each day to remind of the next days activity.  For the march, each staff member was assigned a post to ensure the safety of students.  Here are some pictures below.  I will be posting about Mix It Up Day, as it was the most successful after two years of trial and error!

Classroom Management

I found this idea on Pinterest from the blogger teachingchick.blogspot.com .  She found these from another blogger and titled them the Quiet Critters.  The idea is that each student receives a quiet critter at the beginning of a lesson.  If the student is talking when he/she is not supposed to, the teacher/counselor will move the critter to the corner of the desk.  If the student continues to talk, the critter is put back into the container.  Those students that have quiet critters on their desks at the end of the lesson receive some type of reward in the classroom.

I will be using it slightly different as a school counselor.  This will be my behavior incentive from K-2, possibly 3rd grade.  The students that have critters on their desk will be nominated for a monthly character trait award.  Their names will be entered into the Character Trait Award Raffle.  At the end of each month, I will have the raffle and choose two winners at random.  For example, at the end of October, I will announce the Respect Student of the Month winners.  The students will come to my office and receive their award along with a prize of their choice in my treasure bucket. I will be using a behavior incentive for grades 4-6, which I will write about shortly.  While I only come into the classrooms once a month, I am hoping to establish my own set of expectations.  I think the students will be excited by this and come to look forward to seeing the Quiet Critters during my monthly visit!

Starting Over

So I had a blog that I created a couple of months ago, and was never able to get back into it.  With that being said, new school year, new blog! I want to keep up with this blog for several reasons.  One, school counseling is so important to me, and I feel that it is important to share what I am doing at my school.  Secondly, I have gained so much information and creative lessons for my students from the many school counselor bloggers out there.  I must pay it forward! I am a school counselor in a city and this will be my third year in the profession and at the school.  I have so many ideas for the 2012-2013 school year that it can feel overwhelming to get it all together!  I am taking it one day at a time.  Today, I created a rough draft of a list of educational events to celebrate in the school.  Last year, we celebrated:

Red Ribbon Week (Anti Drug Week)
Bullying Prevention Week
Act of Kindness Week
Mix It Up Day
Teacher Appreciation Week
Administrative Assistant Appreciation Week

They were all a success, and has driven me to continue acknowledging these important days for the students.

Here are some others that I am thinking of doing:

Fire Safety Week October 13-17
Multicultural Diversity Day October 15
Character Counts Week
National Hand Washing Week December
Stranger Danger December
Adopt a rescued rabbit February (it could be very therapeutic to have a soft, calm animal)
National School Counseling Week
Brain Awareness Week
Earth Day
Pay it Forward
School Nurse Day
Internet Safety Week

Phew, now how to get it all scheduled! Luckily I have a group of students called the Peacemakers who were a great help in organizing and participating in these school wide events.  I suggest using your resources to help with these.  I will ask the school nurse to help with the Hand Washing event, the fire department for fire safety, and the police for stranger danger.  What events do you do at your school and how?