GRAND AVENUE NEWSLETTER
September 2024
Counselor Connection
Every year, many children start school with mixed and often conflicting feelings about the unknown, based upon past experiences. The beginning of the school year is a time marked with many positive and negative predictions regarding the experiences to come from both themselves and their significant caregivers. For example, a new teacher(s), new classmates, a new schedule/routine, a new room (maybe a new school), new expectations, and possibly a new set of friends will need to be made.
During this adjustment time, children can experience and display their negative feelings by having physical symptoms, such as a stomachache, headache, irritability, crying and loss of sleep. However, some children will ask their parents, teacher, school counselor, or other trusted adults in their lives for ideas about dealing with those feelings. In any case, it is important for those adults to listen to the child’s concerns. Even though the concerns may seem minimal to adults, any concern a child has is a big deal to the child at the time.
The school counselor is available to all students in all classrooms at Grand Avenue Elementary School, while also offering individuals an opportunity to ask for help privately. If a student would like to receive help from the school counselor at any time throughout the year, they can ask their teacher or other adult to communicate their request via the telephone or email listed below. The school counselor will meet with the student in a timely manner. If these concerns are more complicated than situational and/or developmental changes, the student’s guardians will be contacted and a further plan developed.
All classrooms will have Guidance lessons 3 times each month, for a total of 27 lessons, as well as 110 daily video lessons about social-emotional skills. In September, 3rd graders will review and practice 4 skills for successful learning (focus attention, active listening, self-talk and assertiveness). The 4th graders will learn how to have empathy and respect for their own well-being by making choices that promote healthy minds, in order to have empathy and respect for others’ experiences too. The 5th graders will learn a new curriculum called NeuroLogic that teaches them how to better understand their own responses to situations from a brain perspective and builds their individual toolboxes for self-regulation, which can be carried over into middle school and beyond.
WE look forward to spending the year with our Grand students and strive to support them on their successful educational journey!
“Miss Sadie” (Sadie Sutter)
Grand Avenue School Counselor
(608) 643-1969
sadie.sutter@saukprairieschools.org
GSPie
(GSPie, said “G - S - Pie”)
Your Parent/Caregiver TeacherStaff Organization (PTO)
We are shifting our focus!!!
Read more to learn how it will affect your family & our schools.
