Third Grade Lessons for Sexual Abuse Prevention

My sexual abuse prevention unit for third grade is comprised of three lessons, which focus on body safety, trusting “yucky” or uncomfortable feelings, recognizing grooming behaviors, and the importance of telling about uncomfortable, scary, or dangerous situations. These lessons revisit and build upon skills and concepts that I cover in previous grades, but prior knowledge is not necessary, so you can use them as a starting place even if your students haven’t already had lessons about safe touch.     

For these lessons you will need the books No More Secrets for Me by Oralee Wachter, My Body is Private by Linda Walvoord Girard, and Mia’s Secret by Peter Ledwon and Marilyn Mets. You will also need some drawing/coloring pages

Preparing Students (and Yourself) for Sexual Abuse Prevention Lessons

Let’s face it: it’s not easy to teach lessons about hard topics. And there’s not much that gets harder than talking about sexual abuse, even when the subject is actually sexual abuse prevention. It’s a loaded topic. It’s scary, disturbing, and anxiety provoking. It makes some administrators nervous. You have to walk the line between notifying parents and giving a heads up to someone in the home who may be abusing a child. You have to be prepared for disclosures (and you hope like crazy that they don’t happen in the classroom setting.) The lessons might bring up your own issues

Extreme School Counseling

As a school counselor with seventeen years of experience, I can tell you: It does get easier, but it never stops being hard. I’d like to say that my month-long absence from the blogosphere was because I was on a fabulous around-the-world voyage, but in actuality I’ve been off on a storm-tossed odyssey unlike anything I’ve experienced in my entire career. You know that critical issues class you take in grad school that covers just about everything that can go wrong for kids and families? It was like that, except for real, and squished into the space of three weeks instead of scheduled into tidy, interesting presentations over the course of a semester. Whew!

New Bullying Prevention Video – Featuring My Town!

I am so proud (and a little teary) about a new bullying prevention video, Be an Upstander, Not a Bystander, that came out today! This public service announcement features my town’s police and fire departments, current and former students, and my awesome colleagues Franklin, a fifth grade teacher, and Amy, my counseling partner (and amazing first-year school counselor). Be an Upstander, Not a Bystander would be great to show students anywhere, but could also be an inspiration for your school and town to do something similar.

SuperCounselor Recommends: The They-Never-Mentioned-This-in-Grad-School Guide to the Most Essential Counseling Tools

Invisibility Cloak – Want!

Guest blogging today is our old friend, SuperCounselor, who scolded me mercilessly about not posting more frequently graciously offered to cover for me while I try to keep up with everything that’s been going on at school. 

Hello, Fellow School Counselors! SuperCounselor here, to share with you my top ten list of resources that no school counselor should ever be without.  Oh, I know, I know, where would we be without our social skills games, bullying books, sandtrays, and bulletin boards? But here are some handy tools that I just can’t do without! Um . . . well . . . er . . . actually, I often do do without them, because I’m not quite sure where to purchase them. (Except for one, which I carry

Second Grade Lessons for Sexual Abuse Prevention

My sexual abuse prevention unit for second grade consists of three lessons, which revisit and build upon the skills and concepts covered in first grade. For these lessons you will need the books Scoop by Julia Cook and I Said No! A Kid to Kid Guide to Keeping Private Parts Private by Zack and Kimberly King, as well as scenarios from Teaching Kids How to Tell About Sexual Abuse and some coloring pages (linked below.) It will be helpful for you to familiarize yourself with the foundational information about how to teach sexual abuse prevention by reading the posts Teaching Kids How to Tell About Sexual Abuse and Teaching Kids to Recognize Grooming before you teach the lessons. You can link to all my posts about sexual abuse prevention lessons and resources by visiting A Collection of Sexual Abuse Prevention Resources. The objectives and ASCA National Standards addressed in this unit are listed at the end of the post.

Stand: The Anti-Bullying Anthem

It’s finally out – the crowd-sourced music video of Stand! The singer, Charleigh Gere is a middle school student in our district, who decided to take a stand herself and do something to help other kids stop bullying. The video is comprised of clips of students from all over the world singing, dancing, acting, writing, and signing, united to end bullying. My counseling partner Amy worked with some of her 3rd and 5th grade groups to create clips, which they submitted for the video (some of them even made the cut!). Amy and I use the song (available in iTunes) in our bullying prevention units  and the kids LOVE it! And now here’s the video, which will be a great addition to any lesson about bullying!

Goodbye Bully Machine, Hello Integrated Learning!

I’m always tweaking and working to improve my lessons and units – I want to make sure that they’re meaningful and engaging, and that kids are learning and applying what they’ve learned in real-life settings. Also, I am addicted to just love figuring out how to incorporate new ideas and techniques! (Which may have something to do with why my to-do list is completely ridiculous.)  Most recently, I set my sights on my fourth grade bullying prevention unit. Even though this unit has been impactful and well-received, I wanted to: (1) experiment with how integrating technology and art might expand kids’ understanding about bullying; (2) see how this could help me assess student learning; and (3) increase my knowledge about how best to address the Common Core standards within the counseling curriculum. It was a LOT of work, but the outcome has been amazing!

School Counselors, Meet the Common Core!

You work hard every day to help kids communicate clearly, solve problems, collaborate, gain independence, understand others’ perspectives and cultures, and become college and career ready. You facilitate discussion in one-on-one, small group, and whole-class settings. Depending on the grade levels you cover, it’s likely that you read books with kids, help students prepare for college or job interviews (or disciplinary hearings!), help them interpret assessments or other data to make decisions, and provide guidance about writing application essays. So guess what! You’re probably already on your way to addressing the Common Core State Standards. Here’s some information to help you better understand what the Common Core standards are all about, and how you can integrate them into your practice to improve student learning and build system-wide support for your school counseling program.   

F is for Success, Not Failure

I never know what I’m going to find in the mailbox outside my office door. It could be a request for help, a thank-you note, a picture, a detailed description of what went on at recess (can you say third grade girls?), a mushed up cupcake, or one of the flurry of notes I get about nothing much once first graders discover how exciting it is to deposit their missives in my mailbox. “Can I help you with something?” I ask. Often the answer is, “No. I’m just writing you a note.” And sometimes I get something like this:

F this scool. Get me out of hear know.