Make Lesson Planning Easy With These 3 Counseling Ideas For October
Do you feel like you’re running in circles when it comes to lesson planning? With so many options and no real curriculum map to follow, it can be hard to know what to cover and when to teach it. These 3 lesson ideas will help you plan effective and engaging school counseling lessons this October, as you celebrate Bullying Prevention Month, Red Ribbon Week, and Halloween!
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October Lesson Idea #1: Bullying Prevention
October is National Bullying Prevention Month, which makes it a great time to cover this topic with your students! Bullying is very serious, so it’s important to directly address it, even with your little learners. Two important bullying prevention concepts to teach are: What bullying is, and what students can do if they see or experience it.
Teaching about the definition of bullying will help kids know what it is so they can respond to it appropriately. They will know whether they need to involve an adult, or whether it’s something they can work through on their own.
According to stopbullying.gov, bullying is unwanted, aggressive behavior that is repeated (or has the potential to be repeated) and involves a real or perceived power imbalance.
An acronym I use to help students remember that is STOMP - Several Times, One-sided, Mean and Purposeful. To help your students better understand what bullying is (and what it’s not), grab this Google Slides game!
Once students can identify bullying, they need to know what to do about it. There are many ways to address bullying, but they need to make sure to let an adult know if they see or experience bullying.
Some great strategies your students can use include:
Walking away
Calmly and directly telling the person to stop
Staying calm
Reminding yourself that it’s not your fault
If you are looking for a fun activity for this, grab this Halloween themed bullying lesson - it’s perfect for October!
October Lesson Idea #2: Drug Prevention & Healthy Choices
During the last week of October, many schools celebrate Red Ribbon Week - which is a drug prevention awareness program. This can be acknowledged school-wide through events such as sprit days, poster contests, assemblies and more. You can also include drug prevention activities in your counseling lessons by talking about healthy choices, refusing peer pressure, and the benefits of living drug-free.
There are several resources that can help you implement a Red Ribbon Week at your school:
Want a no-prep activity focused on making healthy choices? Check out this Google Slides game!
October Lesson Idea #3: Worry & Anxiety
Halloween - an American holiday often characterized by all things scary - is October 31st. This fun tradition makes October a great time for counseling lessons that dive deeper into the topics of fear, worry and anxiety.
The Whatifs is one of my favorite resources for kids who always think about the worst case scenario.
A great place to start is to help students learn the difference between worry and anxiety, and to help them begin to identify when they are experiencing these emotions. Being able to recognize their feelings of worry and anxiety will make it easier for students to use coping skills to be more calm.
When you begin teaching about coping skills for worry and anxiety, it can be helpful to talk about the circle of control. This encourages students to focus on the things that they can control, and to not worry so much about the things outside of their control. This post has more specific tips for using this tool with your students!
Still, this can be a difficult topic for some kids to talk about. Thankfully, there are many picture books that are perfect for your worry and anxiety lessons. Some of my favorites are:
Ruby’s Worry by Tom Percival
The Whatifs by Emily Kilgore
Hey Warrior by Karen Young
For more book ideas, check out this blog post.
October can be a fun and busy month as the weather begins to change and the students are gearing up for trick-or-treating. My hope is that these 3 ideas will make your October counseling lessons easier to plan so you can enjoy all of the fun with your students! If you’re looking for more time-saving tips, make sure you sign up below for my weekly e-mails. Each Monday, you’ll get practical ideas and activities delivered directly to your inbox!
