It's a bird...it's a plane...it's the SuperGirls Reading Society!

For the past few years, our school has had a special mentoring partnership for third grade boys with our neighboring high school. The football players come and visit with our students, work on literacy, writing, and leadership skills. It has been an amazing program for these students and one day at a leadership team meeting, I decided our third grade girls needed something to call their own. Enter the Supergirls Reading Society! (That name took MUCH longer to come up with than I'd like to admit!) One of my fellow counselors and I collaborated to come up with a plan for 7th grade girls to come to our school and mentor our third grade girls, while working on literacy, writing, and self- confidence skills. I have been toying with the idea of starting a book club for awhile and with the help of my assistant principal and media specialist, we found Sophie the Awesome by Lara Bergen! This is a GREAT book for 3rd and 4th grade girls and our group absolutely loved it this afternoon! I had to convince several of my students not to buy/rent the book this weekend, as we will be using it at each of our meetings this year! Luckily, there is an entire Sophie series, so we will be able to keep the girls updated with Sophie's antics even after we finish with our reading society. The girls had so much fun with their new book buddies today-they attempted to convince me to meet daily, so I'll consider the first meeting a success! Below are some photos of the afternoon and some of our work samples. Happy Friday!

Ol-we- WHAT? Information about our new Olweus Bullying Prevention Program!

This fall, we are joining the rest of the District One and becoming an official Olweus school! 

So...what exactly IS Olweus? So glad you asked!

Olweus is a school wide program that has been proven to prevent or reduce bullying throughout a school setting. 

Olweus definition of bullying: "A person is bullied when he or she is exposed, repeatedly and over time, to negative actions on the part of one or more other persons, and he or she has difficulty defending himself or herself."


This definition includes three important components:

 1. Bullying is aggressive behavior that involves unwanted, negative actions.

 2. Bullying involves a pattern of behavior repeated over time.
 3. Bullying involves an imbalance of power or strength.

Students at IES are only K-3...why do we need this?

By the time bullying escalates to a harmful level, student attitudes and behaviors are already defined in many cases. A lot of times, students can't properly differentiate on what actually constitutes as bullying and that's when things can get really out of control. So, why K-3? So that we can handle bullying from the ground up: teach students what bullying is, what it's not, and teach them essential life skills to provide them with the skills to be better students, people, and later, adults!

P.S. Bullying is Not Teasing

It might be hard to tell the difference between playful teasing and bullying. Teasing usually involves two or more friends who act together in a way that seems fun to all the people involved. Often they tease each other equally, but it never involves physical or emotional abuse.

Why Students Bully

Information about bullying suggests that there are three interrelated reasons why students bully.

1. Students who bully have strong needs for power and (negative) dominance.

2. Students who bully find satisfaction in causing injury and suffering to other students.
3. Students who bully are often rewarded in some way for their behavior with material or psychological rewards. 

So, what does the program accomplish school wide?

• Reduces existing bullying problems among students

• Prevents the development of new bullying problems

• Achieves better peer relations at school

Great! So what will actually happen when our school implements the program?

We will be having our school wide kick off the morning of Thursday, October 30th. That same day, all classes will hold their first class meetings during explore time. We will have Olweus Notebooks  with lesson ideas, as well as places for us to document our efforts in changing our school climate. Meetings will take place weekly.

As our students become well versed in the actual Olweus definition and practices through class meetings, what can we expect to see?

• 50% or more reductions in student reports of being bullied and bullying others

• Significant reductions in student reports of general antisocial behavior, such as bullying, vandalism, fighting, theft, and truancy

• Significant improvements in the classroom social climate, reflected in student reports of improved order and discipline, more positive social relationships and more positive attitudes towards school work and school

• Greater support for students who are bullied, and stronger, more effective interventions for students who bully

            It's coming! October 30th, 2014 

A peek at my spaces and places!

My office, where individual and small group counseling take place

My Classroom

The "Calm Corner" is equipped with calm down strategies, emotion identification and corresponding ideas to solve problems...not to mention a calm jar, stress ball, and music!

Bulletin board reflecting our school theme (and a little bit of my personal theme, the Clemson Tigers!)

My best attempt at a tiger superhero!

Check out the QR codes! We have an amazing media specialist who helped me out with these!

iHelp display

Our School Expectations, Anti-Bullying Behaviors, and & 7 Habits of Happy Kids display!

                                                    7 Habits and Superhero Behavior!

Our new proud board showcasing students caught doing good!

A closer look at our Character Superpower tickets!

Our Kiwanis Terrific Kids Board! 

Our Terrific Kid acronym (and promotion! )

Our "BE" bulletin board

How do you use your spaces and places to foster student learning and create a positive classroom environment? 

Happy 2014-15 School Year!

Welcome to a new school year at Inman Elementary School! Since school has begun, we have been showcasing our super powers all around the school! Our character focus for the month of August is Friendship! Here are the lesson standards and essential questions we are working towards!

Standards:

A:A3.2 – Demonstrate the ability to work independently, as well as the ability to work cooperatively with other students.

C:C2.3 – Learn to work cooperatively with others as a team member.

PS:A2.8 – Learn how to make and keep friends.

Essential Questions:

• What is friendship? What does it mean to be a friend?
• What are the traits of a friend?  
• How can we work together to get along?
  
  

We have been using technology in the guidance classroom through the use of iPads and Apple TV to show a video clips of positive friendship behavior and how friends treat each other! We are discussing what types of friends we would like to have, what traits we would not like in a friend, and how we should treat others. We are learning friendship vocabulary words through our friendship recipe game and hitting home the fundamental idea that if we want to have friends, we have to BE a friend first!


In the meantime, teachers are on the look out for students who exhibit positive friendship behaviors to receive the Super Friend award at the end of the month. We will be celebrating our Good Character Superheroes of at a lunch celebration VERY soon! In the meantime, here are some examples of how we are practicing Friendship around our school!

Our "Giving Tree"-Student decorated apples and wrote words and sentences about what friendship means to them.

A closer look!

Here's a glimpse of our new "Proud" Board in the main hallway! Students have opportunities to earn superhero tickets from teachers and staff when they are caught showing SUPER character traits! It is our hope that by displaying student behavior accomplishments, it will serve as a strong visual reinforcer and reminder to engage in positive behavior. Plus, if a student earns a ticket, they redeem it for a brag tag and prize! As an extra incentive, tickets will be drawn on Eagle News for a special prize from the school store!