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