Update from WES/WMS Counselors & Nurses Welcome to the New Year!

Elementary Counselor News: With the start of the new year comes the start of a new curriculum!

We have already begun the intro into our Zones of Regulation, which is our social-emotional curriculum designed to help each student recognize and control their emotional state at any given time.

There are four different Zones:

• GREEN: Ready to learn and good to go (happy, calm, focused, etc.)

• YELLOW: Almost out of control, need to slow down (silly, frustrated, excited, confused, nervous, etc.)

• BLUE: Body is moving in Sloooooow Mooootion (tired, bored, sick, sad, etc.)

• RED: EXTREME emotions (angry, scared, elated, etc.)

*Emotions are not good or bad, they just are! We’ll be learning about and expanding our emotional vocabulary all month long!

Nurse News: With cold winter air comes dry air. Please consider using a humidifier in your house if possible. We are seeing an increased number of complaints of sore throats due to dryness and bloody noses. Kids are coming in with dry itchy skin that would benefit from regular lotion use and very dry lips that would benefit from lip moisturizer use. Please consider sending these items with your child for them to use while at school. A water bottle would also be useful.

Getting back into the swing of things in regards to sleep can be difficult. School-aged children need between 9-12 hours of sleep to help their body process what they learned that day and recharge for the next day. Getting enough sleep can help your child’s immune system stay strong also.

Sticking to a similar schedule even on weekends and breaks helps make returns on Monday much easier.

Kidshealth.org is a wonderful website for doctor-reviewed advice on a lot of different topics that come up for children.

Healthychildren.org is updated by the American Academy of Pediatrics and also has a lot of helpful information.

Middle/High School Counselor News: We’d like to extend a warm welcome back to school, and are looking forward to finishing the year out strong. We are just about at the halfway point, and our 2nd semester will be filled with different activities. In the coming weeks, there will be presentations focused on career planning and inventories, to encourage students to recognize options available to them when they leave Whitehall Schools in the coming years. There are some potential visits to explore options on different Montana campuses in the coming months as well.