All About Me is finally ... almost ... done!!

Hi Everyone!

I am sorry at the lapse of time it has been since I lasted made a blog post! Between being done with my long-term subbing gig and trying to find a new one, it has been a stressful time!

But I finally found a new counseling job (More on that in the next post) so that has lowered (or increased I am not sure) my stress level. I also went back to my old job which as at least given me some money.

I finally finished my all about me book, with the exception of three pages because I cannot for the life of me find the rest of the cutouts that I already made.

Here are the pictures of all the pages. Obviously I put paper over the personal information I do not need the entire world to know. Although, those middle school pictures are pretty rough to be showing the world wide web!

Here we go!

Every good book must have a table of contents.

Here is where the graduate school page will be when it is done!

This one was really hard to put up. As of last Thursday (12/6), Sadie is no longer with us. :-( But she lived a good, long life! And she was a great dog for our family!

Here is where my favorite books page will be when it is done!

The final page will say something to the effect of, "Now that you know all about me, I want to know all about you!"

Hope you all enjoyed the final pages! It has been a long time coming!

In my next post, I will talk about my new counseling job as well as put up some pictures of my new "office" before I have decorated. A later post will have the final product up!

Question for the day. Does anyone have any good lesson planning books for small groups on social skills and anger management? They should be groups that will get results since my new job is going to be completely data-driven. More on that later!

Hope you all are having a great weekend. We are supposed to FINALLY get some snow tomorrow! Whoo hoo!

Jennifer

Testing, Testing, Testing

Hi Fellow Educators (And maybe some non-educators),

I thought these next few pictures were fitting considering the next two weeks that we are about to jump into.

We are officially in testing week people! Right now, there are two separate tests taking place at my school. MAP testing is required for all 2-5 grade students. 2nd and 4th graders are taking it this week and 3rd and 5th grade are taking it next week.

There is also a test called the COGAT going on. These are being taken by the 3rd and 5th grade students. I was feeling a bit overwhelmed while trying to schedule all these tests as well as making sure all the IEP and 504 students were taken care of. Now that testing is about to get underway, and things seem to be going smoothly this morning (fingers crossed) it should make for a easy flowing week.

I also start classroom guidance this week for the month of September. I will post about that at the end of the week since I will have given a lesson in each grade and be able to post some picture of the work that gets done! I am excited to get into all the classrooms and start learning students names. I really enjoy being in the classroom and I hope that each lesson runs as smoothly as possible.

Until then,

Jennifer

R.E.S.P.E.C.T

It's Called Respect!!

Our music teacher, who happens to coordinate all the school meetings, came across this awesome video that we used yesterday to teach the first bit of our school way. RESPECT!

I thought it was super catchy and the students LOVED it. I heard them singing it throughout the hallways as they were getting ready to head home for the day.

It's called Respect.
R.E.S.P.E.C.T
I give it to you
And you give it to me

It's called Respect.
R.E.S.P.E.C.T
You've got to treat people
Respectfully

Hope you are having a wonderful Tuesday!

Jennifer

My New Office...And New School.

Hi Everyone,

Well, I have my first week under my belt and I have to say, I am feeling way more confident! I am going to work with my first individual student this afternoon and my first classroom lessons are a week from today!

I thought I would share with you the AMAZING office that I am using while I am here. Its HUGE!! It is easily four times as big as the one that my supervisor, other intern, and I used at my elementary internship site.

This is taken from my desk looking towards the door.

This is taken from the door looking in. Look, WINDOWS!

 

 

There is room for a desk, huge table, and reading/calming area. If this was really my office, I might move around the furniture to be slightly more conducive to counseling, but in the meantime, this will have to do. The room definitely needs some color!! Its so white! Wish I could paint a wall or two!

I decided that I really needed to decorate the door. The hallway I am in is in the basement so it definitely needs some color around here!

Here is my door decoration for the month of September!

"WhOO cares about ... Your School Counselor, thats WhOO!"

I did the entire door using my Cricut machine! Which I now have officially fallen in love with. I used it not only for the door but for my "all about miss Wagner" book (Pictures of that to follow soon!) On the leaves are the many different topics that school counselors care about. Topics such as grief, friendships, bullying, careers, and many more!  I just adore the way the owls turned out! I think they are so cute and they make it easy to let students know where my office is. Its the office with the owls on the door, duh!

I also decided that it would probably be pretty important to make a place for the students to drop any 'mail' off for me. I also think it is important to make sure the students can find me when I am not in the office.

I am very much an open door counselor but I also don't want the students busting in on an important meeting.

All they have to do is fill one of these out! I have already had a few students using these. Awesome!

My "mailbox".

Where is Ms. Wagner? All over the place clearly!

I am amazed at the amount of teachers that I have had come up to me and tell me that they think this is a brilliant idea. I cant believe that no one has thought of it before. This way, if a student really needs me, they know where to find me. It says things like, here-come in, in a classroom, out in the hallways, be right back, recess duty, lunch, please do not disturb, and meeting.

The final decoration looks like this:

Ms. Wagner's office!

I think it turned out pretty good! Its cheerful and perfect for the kids for the beginning of the year! Next month I will change my door decoration to be a "bucket filling" door. I am pretty excited to use my Cricut again and make another brightly colored door. It's going to be the start of my sneaking in character education before I leave here.

So  far, the students have been awesome and the staff has been so welcoming! Its great to feel needed in a school. I only had to deal with a small number of crying young ones last week. I think that will start to dwindle this week.

Thank for reading and stay tuned for my all about me book pictures which will be posted soon!

Jennifer

A JOB!!

Hey everyone,

So I found a job. Its not the most ideal situation but all you need is a foot in the door right!? I am the long term substitute counselor in an elementary school is Wisconsin. Student population is about 700. There is a second counselor and he just got hired last week. This is both our first counseling positions so we are going to muscle our way through together!

Being a long term sub is not ideal but its a foot in the door and I get to work with the little ones!!

I am almost done with my about me book and believe me, the pictures will get posted on here as soon as I am done! As well as pictures of "my" new office.

Thank for all the support. Hope every ones new school year has started off fabulously!!

Jennifer

PS Sorry for the extra exclamation points. I am just really excited as I am sure you can tell.

Well...It's Official...

Hello everyone,

My name is Jennifer Wagner, M.A.!! It is official. I have a Master's degree!! I thought I would share this fantastic news with all of you and thank you for being with me on this wild ride!

Now bring on the job offers! Seriously though, if anyone knows of any openings in their districts, let me know!!

Thanks again for all your support through this journey!

Jennifer

Coming to an end...

Hi Everyone!

I hope this post finds everyone in good spirits. Not too much time left before the school year is over and we will be into summer. I cannot believe it is May! How crazy!!

I am finishing up at both of my internship sites. I wasn't prepared for the "goodbye". Which is silly of me! We do forgiveness education at my elementary site. This week is our last week of lessons. The other intern and I received some very lovely gifts from our 1st grade students on Monday. I had a hard time holding back my tears. One of the classrooms made the other intern and myself cards. They were soooooo cute!! My favorite line was, "Thank you for reading us hirton hers a ho". I just about died laughing! How cute is that?! Horton hears a who was one of my favorites that we read this semester.

A friend suggested that I frame that card and on days that I am feeling down or the school day is a rough one, I can pull that out to remind me why I am doing what I am doing. I thought that was a rather brilliant idea.

The other 1st grade classroom gave us a welcome sign that we can place on our door when we get our first job to remember then by. How cute! I was not prepared for how emotional it would be. I was sad to leave my site last semester but this semester I have had way more contact with the kids in the classroom. I knew it was the last lesson I was going to give but I guess I just wasnt prepared for how sad I would be to leave.

Tomorrow is our last day of lessons for the rest of the classrooms. We have 4 of them. I think I will be more prepared emotionally to handle what tomorrow might bring. I just hope I can make it through the day then if I need to go home and cry, I can. :-)

I have one more week with my individual students at the elementary school level. At least I won't have to say goodbye to them this week as well.

On a positive note, I applied for three jobs in my dream district this week. Keeping my fingers crossed that I get a call back. I did some leg work a few weeks back in the district so I am hoping getting my name out there paid off.

How do you guys handle "goodbyes" in the counseling world? Esp. the interns or new professionals.

Thanks guys! I hope you are all having a great end to the semester.

Jennifer

Caine's Arcade

You have to see this video! This just made my day! What a genius kid. And the man that helped him, AMAZING!

Check out the video then if you feel so inclined, they are matching donations for a college fund for the kid!

http://cainesarcade.com/

Hope you all enjoy it!

Jennifer

An Update!

Hey all!

It has been a long time since I have written a post. I was on Pinterest today looking up school counseling things in my "spare time" a.k.a procrastination and I stumbled across my picture. For a second I was really confused until I realize someone had pinned my blog! Needless to say, I was a little flabbergasted. So I wanted to say thank you to all of those people who stop by here and read my blog. I always appreciate the exposure and the feedback.

On to bigger things. This last week I was in the great state of Iowa shadowing a few counselors in two of the districts that I would LOVE to get a job in. It was a great week! I learned so much from these three counselors! They were so warm and inviting and I am so appreciative of them to allow me to tag along with them for half a day. I think that if I get an interview in either of these districts, I have a pretty good grasp of what to say!

Speaking of jobs, talk about a stressful time! I hope that I hear about an interview sometime soon. I keep applying, applying, and applying. I hope that I hear something from someone. If any of you reading this knows of any openings in your districts, you should let me know. I am willing to travel wherever the openings take me :-)

These next 3 weeks are going to be pretty stressful. I have three weeks of class left and I am less than one month away from graduation. I am just going to try to get through the last few weeks of internship and class so that I can hardcore job hunt.

I am a little nervous about terminating the relationships that I have built with students at my internship site. I am hoping that it will go smoothly. I think that with three weeks left, I should start to talk with the students now to build up to my last day. Does that sound right? This will be the first time that I have had individual students all my own that I have built a strong relationship with.

Well, thanks for listening to me rant for a bit. I will probably be back on to write about my final few weeks of internship and graduation. I cannot believe it is less than 30 days away! Eeek!

Jennifer Wagner

Pick from Me Bowls

Hey all,

When I was at the WSCA conference last week, I got these great cards. They have a positive message on one side and a trivia question on the other. They are meant for lunchboxes but the lady I was talking to says she uses them with students. I was thinking of having them for students to grab as they walk out of the door of the office.

I was strolling around Michaels, which is such a dangerous thing to do, when I stumbled upon these cute little fishbowls. They were originally $5 which I thought was a great deal but when I got to the register, they were only $2.50! I should have gone back to get more!! I took small pieces of tissues paper and modge-podged them on the outside. They are colorful and fun! I am thinking of using one to put candy in and the other to put cards with positive messages.

What do you think? Is this something you would do for your office?

It was a great project to get done on this snowy Wisconsin Friday and Saturday!

Jennifer

Mindset of Kids Today!

Hey Everyone.

So my younger brother (who is a senior in high school and turns 18, gasp!, this weekend) brought home this HILARIOUS but totally true list of the mindset of the class of 2011. I think that this applies to all the students that we are working with. I thought I would share this with all of you. Hopefully you find some humor to it. I hope that it gives you something fresh to think about as well.

1. What Berlin wall?
2. Humvees, minus the artillery, have always been available to the public.
3. Rush Limbaugh and the "Dittoheads" have always been lambasting liberals.
4. They never "rolled down" a car window.
5. Michael Moore has always been angry and funny.
6. They may confuse the Keating Five with a rock group.
7. They have grown up with bottled water.
8. General Motors has always been working on an electric car.
9. Nelson Mandela has always been free and a force in South Africa.
10. Pete Rose has never played baseball.
11. Rap music has always been mainstream.
12. Religious leaders have always been telling politicians what to do, or else!
13. "Off the hook" has never had anything to do with a telephone.
14. Music has always been "unplugged".
15. Russia has always had a multi-party political system.
16. Women have always been police chiefs in major cities.
17. They were born the year Harvard Law Review Editor Barack Obama announced he might run for office some day.
18. The NBA season has always gone on and on and on and on.
19. Classmates could include Michelle Wie, Jordin Sparks, and Bart Simpson.
20. Half of them may have been members of the Baby-sitters Club.
21. Eastern Airlines has never "earned their wings" in their lifetime.
22. No one has ever been able to sit down comfortably to a meal of "liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti".
23. Wal-Mart has always been a larger retailer than Sears and has always employed more workers than GM.
24. Being "lame" has to do with being dumb or inarticulate, not disabled.
25. Wolf Blitzer has always been serving up the news on CNN.
26. Katie Couric has always had screen cred.
27. Al Gore has always been running for president or thinking about it.
28. They never found a prize in a Coca-Cola "MagiCan".
29. They were too young to understand Judas Priest's subliminal messages.
30. When all else fails, the Prozac defense has always been a possibility.
31. Multigrain chips have always provided healthful junk food.
32. They grew up in Wayne's World.
33. U2 has always been more than a spy plane.
34. They were introduced to Jack Nicholson as "The Joker".
35. Stadiums, rock tours and sporting events have always had corporate names.
36. American rock groups have always appeared in Moscow.
37. Commercial product placements have been the norm in films and on TV.
38. On Parents' Day on campus, their folks could be mixing it up with Lisa Bonet and Lenny Kravitz with daughter Zoe, or Kathie Lee and Frank Gifford with son Cody.
39. Fox has always been a major network.
40. They drove their parents crazy with the Beavis and Butt-Head laugh.
41. The "Blue Man Group" has always been everywhere.
42. Women's studies majors have always been offered on campus.
43. Being a latchkey kid has never been a big deal.
44. Thanks to MySpace and Facebook, autobiography can happen in real time.
45. They learned about JFK from Oliver Stone and Malcolm X from Spike Lee.
46. Most phone calls have never  been private.
47. High definition television has always been available.
48. Microbreweries have always been ubiquitous.
49. Virtual reality has always been available when the real thing failed.
50. Smoking has never been allowed in public spaces in France.
51. China has always been more interested in making money than a reeducation.
52. Time has always worked with Warner.
53. Tienanmen Square is a 2008 Olympics venue, not the scene of a massacre.
54. The purchase of ivory has always been banned.
55. MTV has never featured music videos.
56. The space program has never really caught their attention except in disasters.
57. Jerry Springer has always been lowering the level of discourse on TV.
58. They get much more information from Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert than from the newspaper.
59. They're always texting 1 n other.
60. They will encounter roughly equal numbers of female and male professors in the classroom.
61. They never saw Johnny Carson live on television.
62. They have no idea who Rusty Jones was or why he said "goodbye to rusty cars".
63. Avatars have nothing to do with Hindu deities.
64. Chavez has nothing to do with iceberg lettuce and everything to do with oil.
65. Illinois has been trying to ban smoking since the year they were born.
66. The World Wide Web has been an online tool since they were born.
67. Chronic fatigue syndrome has always been debilitating and controversial.
68. Burma has always been Myanmar.
69. Dilbert has always been ridiculing cubicle culture.
70. Food packaging has always included nutritional labeling.

Now I realize while reading through these, there are some that I admit I wasn't not sure what they meant. But there are others that I see on a regular basis from the kids that I am working with this semester.

After reading these, which ones stand out the most to you?

 Hope you have a fantastic weekend. I will be celebrating it with my family for my brother's 18th birthday, much to my mother's chagrin.

Thanks for stopping by.
Jennifer

Use of Technology in Counseling

Happy New Year!

I know it has been a while since I have written on post. My break was filled with family, friends, and working lots of hours! I have to say, that paycheck will be a nice one. I took time to clean and organize the back room at my work and oh my was it a challenge. I think I can safely say that I am now a pro. Now it is on to my parents "office" or catch all at our house. I will really be a pro after that.

I am going to try harder to add more posts this semester. I am hoping to have more ideas to share with you all, especially with the amount of classroom guidance I am going to be doing this semester.

The new semester is upon us. I started my final semester of classes this last week. I also started my new internships but this next week will be the first full week. I am at one middle school and one K-12 which will serve as my elementary school hours. I am sure I will have plenty of stories and dilemmas to work through with you all throughout the semester.

I have been contemplating getting myself an iPad. I have a little money set aside. There are plenty of ways that I can use the iPad personally and as far as school is concerned. I am wondering from all you school counselors out there if there are ways that you use an iPad. I think that it could probably work great in the professional setting to keep track of hours, students seen, etc. I am wondering if any of you have used it for classroom guidance or individual or group counseling. Please add your input in the comments section. Hearing from you could push my decision to one side or the other.

Thanks. I am looking forward to hearing from you all.

Jennifer