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True Colors: Blue Week!

A few months ago our 8th grade students participated in a classroom lesson called True Colors. Each student learned about personality types and completed various activities to show them what "color" their personality is. This week we are featuring our "blue" students. We are bringing in two "blue" professionals who have a career in a blue-related field. They will be speaking with our students about their careers during lunch. Tuesday we will be featuring a local author and Wednesday we will be featuring a photographer. Please remind your students to sign up if they are interested in attending these sessions during their lunch period. Stay tuned for more guest speakers throughout the rest of the year!

Spring Break Conversation Starters

These questions are based off of classroom lessons we have done. True Colors lesson (8th grade): - What "color" are you? What does that mean about you? - What are the other colors? What do those colors represent? - What color are your friends? What color do you think I am? - What jobs would be a good fit for your color? Do any of those interest you? Career Cruising/EDP lesson (7th and 8th grade): - What types of things did you do on the Career Cruising website? - What were the results from the matchmaker assessment? Did any of those career options interest you? - Did you learn about any careers that you hadn't heard of before? Did any of those jobs seem interesting? - What are you post-graduation plans (military, tech school, college/university, etc.)? - What did you learn about those options? - What else did you learn from the Career Cruising website? We hope this helps spark some conversations over Spring Break! Especially those of you who have lengthy road trips planned.

M-STEP

M-Step testing starts on April 13 and runs until May 26. You can find schedule and testing information on this page http://lastesting.weebly.com/. Starting on April 13, we will run No AF Schedule everyday, except Fridays.Good luck to all of our students who will be testing!

Career Cruising/ Educational Development Plans

Yesterday we started the Career Cruising/Educational Development Plan classroom lesson with our 7th grade students. The students take a Matchmaker assessment that matches their interests with a list of potential careers that could be a good fit for them. The students can click on various careers and learn more about them including job descriptions, a "day in the life" schedule, earnings, etc. It was fun to see the kids get excited and talk with their peers about various careers that they might enjoy and excel in. We also have our students create long term and short term goals and fill out a pick sheet to help with scheduling next year. Both 7th and 8th grade students will be participating in this lesson and filling out part of their EDP. Educational Developments Plans are educational plans that students create with their counselors. These plans follow students up to the high school so that their high school program and career pathway goals can be correlated. Students can access their EDP at any point in time online at www.careercruising.com. Students have been assigned a username and password.

PSAT Follow-Up

After all of the snow we got, we were finally able to administer the PSAT to our 8th grade students. And let me just tell you, they blew the staff away! Our 8th grade students did an incredible job taking the test. They handled themselves very maturely despite the long testing hours and everything went smoothly.

End of 2nd Trimester is Here!

It has been a very eventful trimester for our LMS students and staff. Many of our students have participated in numerous activities this trimester including Festival, drama performances, sports, PSATs, True Colors - just to name a few. With everyone moving at full speed, the end of the trimester snuck up on us. Tomorrow is the last day of trimester 2 and it is a half day for our students. We are hoping this bit of extra time off will get them refreshed and ready to dive in to trimester 3 starting on Monday.

PSAT Is Here!

This is a friendly reminder that this Thursday 8th grade students will be taking the PSAT during school. We highly recommend your student(s) get a good night sleep the night before and that they eat breakfast the morning of the test. We are wishing them all good luck! Note: Depending on weather, the reschedule date is set for Tuesday, March 1.

8th Grade True Colors Lesson

Last week the counselors visited the 8th grade US History classes to present a lesson called True Colors. The intent of this lesson is to help students identify their personality type, which is based off of four different colors (blue, green, orange, and gold). The students did a series of small tests to determine their color, and then each personality type was discussed in more detail. Students were able to learn how this information will be helpful for them when it comes to personal self-awareness, working with others, and finally when looking to choose a career path. Please ask your child what color he/she was and explain what it means!

STARS has begun!

Another year of the STARS mentorship program has started at LMS. STARS is a group facilitated by the counselors that is designed to provide mentorship between 6th and 8th grade girls. The group covers a variety of topics, including friendship, communication, body image, and self-esteem. We are excited to work with 49 6th graders and 18 8th graders! If your daughter is involved in the program, make sure to check in each Wednesday to see what was discussed!

Counseling Office Intern

This year Mrs. Stacey Oswald will be joining us in the counseling office. Mrs. Oswald is a graduate of Cornerstone University and is completing her Master's in School Counseling at Spring Arbor University. She began Campus Life in Lowell over three years ago, which is a mentoring program for LMS students. She will be with us for the majority of the school year and will be dividing her time between the middle school and high school.

New Students and Incoming 6th Graders

We are so excited to announce that this year LMS has 41 new students! This Thursday, Sept. 17, we will be providing pizza in the Counseling Corner for our new students. This will take place during the lunch period for each grade. We also would like to welcome all of the incoming 6th grade students. Part of what we do each year to ensure the 6th graders are off to a good start at LMS is meeting with each of them individually. Please remind your student that if they receive a pass to go to the counseling office that they are never in trouble and there is no need to be nervous. We care deeply for all of our students so a check-in from us is very normal.

Welcome Back!

It is hard to believe another school year has started. We have loved seeing the hallways filled with students again. We hope that your students' first few weeks back have been enjoyable and have gone smoothly. To help the year go as well as possible for your students, the counseling office will be offering a variety of resources and opportunities. Throughout the year we will be teaching lessons in the classrooms, providing various activities and events for your students to participate in, and we are always available to talk one-on-one. As these opportunities come up we will provide information on the blog. We also want you to know that not only are we here for your students, but we are here for you as well. Please do not hesitate to contact us and we will do our best to be a helpful resource for you.

5th grade parent orientation

We had a wonderful turn-out last night as we hosted the 5th grade parents for middle school orientation night. If you were unable to attend or still have more questions, please call the middle school and you will be directed to the appropriate staff member. We can't wait to meet the incoming 6th grade students next year!

Career Lunch Time Speakers

As part of the 8th grade guidance curriculum, the counselors have invited guest speakers to come in and talk to interested 8th graders about their careers. This is following the True Colors classroom lesson that the counselors delivered in February. Each 8th grader was able to determine their personality type, which was represented by 4 different colors, blue, orange, green, and gold. The guest speakers have also represented these colors and students are able to sign up to come hear about their career path. We started in February with "Blues" being represented by Mrs. Stacey Oswald (director of Campus Life in Lowell) and Ms. Laurie Kuna (former Lowell teacher, school board member, and author). March was the month for "Orange" with Mrs. Patty Sellner (athletic trainer) and Officer Toddy Summerhays (Lowell schools police liaison). Mr. Ross Otten (engineer) visited us last week to represent the "Greens" and Dr. Kim Mast (veterinarian) will be coming this week. Our final speakers for the "Golds" will be Mrs. Heather Cooper (pilot), and Sergeant Matthew Boulis to talk about careers in the military.

Educational Development Plans

The counselors worked with the social studies classes for both 7th and 8th grade to help them create their Educational Development Plans (EDPs). A student creates their EDP in 7th grade, and it is a tool that stays with them throughout high school. We use a program called Career Cruising to help students gain insight into future career possibilities. Within their EDP, students are able to save potential career paths, research specific jobs, set/save goals, and much more as they get older. We hope that students will re-visit their EDP throughout the school year (and summer), and share the information with their parents. Here is how a student logs into his/her EDP: 1) Go to careercruising.com 2) Log in with, username: lowell, password: arrows 3) To log in to their personal EDP -- 7th grade: username: las-first initial, middle initial, full last name, and the number 20 password: las + student ID 8th grade: all the same except the number 19 goes after their last name

Freshman Orientation Date

A message from the High School Counselors: Class of 2019 Orientation Thursday, February 12, 2015 Lowell Performing Arts Center 7:00 PM – 8:30 PM Please enter on the West side of the building. This orientation is for parents and their children who will be entering high school in the fall of 2015.

Today in STARS we talked about body image and the pressures that are put on young girls to look a certain way. This can be a difficult topic for some girls to talk about, so if your daughter is participating in STARS it might be nice to have a follow-up discussion at home tonight. The link below is one of the videos we watched together. http://realbeautysketches.dove.us/

Variety Show - Tonight!

Come support and be entertained by our middle school students who are participating in the Variety Show tonight! The show is at the LPAC and begins at 7:00.

STARS has begun!

We are so excited to begin another year with our STARS mentorship program. Yesterday we met with 45 6th grade girls and 24 8th grade girls to start this wonderful experience. STARS will continue to meet up until Christmas break. Here is the schedule for dates and hours we meet: November 12 - 3rd hour November 19 - 4th hour December 3 - 5th hour December 10 - 6th hour December 17 - 7th hour