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.   

A Must-Have Video: Real Kids Tell How to Stop Abuse

There is nothing like kids teaching kids – it is engaging, powerful, and another kid’s words can often be more meaningful than an adult’s. It’s great to have role models visit a classroom to talk about how they learned to solve conflicts or stop bullying, but this kind of presentation is not possible when it comes to abuse prevention. Here, though, is a way to provide meaningful kid-to-kid teaching about this important topic. The video, Break the Silence: Kids Against Child Abuse is an amazing, must-have resource. In it, four real kids tell their stories and share the importance of telling an adult about physical and sexual abuse, and how doing so ends the abuse and brings them to safety. See below for suggestions about how you can get a copy.

Coloring Book Helps Kids Learn About Sexual Abuse Prevention

Recently, McKenzie Roman, a community educator from the YWCA in Kalamazoo, Michigan contacted me to ask if she could use some of the ideas in my posts about sexual abuse prevention in a coloring book that she was developing for classroom lessons in Kalamazoo elementary schools. Of course, I said “YES!”  The coloring book is now complete and the Kalamazoo YWCA has generously shared it with me so that I can share it with all of you! It was pretty much like my birthday, Christmas, Valentine’s Day, and a dance party all wrapped up into one magical moment when I received my copy this week! 

A Collection of Sexual Abuse Prevention Resources

It has been deeply gratifying to hear from so many people about how they have used the sexual abuse prevention lessons and resources that I have written about in various blog posts. I am passionate about the topic of sexual abuse prevention – I have seen such amazing changes in children who are able to report and avoid abuse – and am so glad to be able to help others as they do this important work. To make it easier for people to more easily locate all the posts I’ve written about sexual abuse prevention, I’ve put them all together, with a little help from a friend.

Feeling Safe At School and Home

I hope you’re feeling okay and that you are treating yourself gently as you continue to support your students, families, and coworkers. I’m sure that many of us had similar experiences today. Somehow, it helped to know that even though we were miles away from each other, we were all working together in support of our school families, and of each other.

Today was a busy, overwhelming day, but I do feel like we made a good beginning at helping our students feel safe and able to express and help themselves with their feelings.

Talking with Students in Response to the Sandy Hook Shooting

I’m sure all of you are heartbroken over the tragedy of the shooting at Sandy Hook. I’m also sure that you’ve been very busy trying to prepare for your response at school tomorrow and in the following week. I too have been busy trying to make sure that we have all our supports in place at my school, while also supporting the new elementary school counselors in my district as they plan their responses. And also while trying to care for myself as I process this horrible situation and steady myself for the work I need to do.

One of the things I did was to create a script for my colleagues, outlining how and what I will say when I go into the classrooms tomorrow. In case that is also helpful for you, I have linked to it here.

First Grade Lessons for Sexual Abuse Prevention

My first grade sexual abuse prevention lessons revisit and build upon the skills and concepts covered in kindergarten. (See Kindergarten Lessons for Sexual Abuse Prevention.) For this series of three lessons you will need the books I Can Play It Safe by Alison Feigh, Your Body Belongs to You by Cornelia Maude Spelman, and Do You Have a Secret? by Jennifer Moore-Mallinos. For the activities you will also need some coloring pages, a Good Secrets Box, and Secrets Cards. (Find links for these resources below.)