The Caffeinated Counselor: What's Up Wednesday: Kelso & "I" Messages

Kelso's Choices and Building I-Messages

For the past two weeks, I have been teaching Kelso's Choices. If you don't know about Kelso, he is a friendly green frog that helps students solve small problems by using a variety of strategies.

In K-2 the focus is on learning the 9 strategies and knowing when and how to use them. For grades 3-5, we dig a little deeper. They have been hearing about Kelso for years and it is time to really practice using some of the most important strategies.

For my 3rd grade classes, we focused in on the strategy of "Tell Them to Stop" and "Talk it Out". I teach them how to construct I-Messages (no, not Apple's text messages). An "I" message is a communication tool that focuses on the beliefs or feelings of the speaker, rather than the thoughts and characteristics that the speaker attributes to the listener.

Our circle starter question was simply, "What is a problem?". I was impressed with their responses. They said things like...

"Something that needs a solution."

"When something is going wrong, but you're really not sure what to do."

"A mixed-up feeling that usually doesn't involve happiness."

Then I introduced the idea of how to construct an I-Message with a four part statement.

1. Say their name to make sure you have their attentions.

2. Tell them how you feel and make sure you use a feeling word that really helps them understand how you are feeling. Usually sad and mad don't explain our feelings really well. We brainstormed some replacement feelings...

3. Explain what happened to make you feel this way. (Tell them the problem)

4. Tell them what you need from now on.

Next we used fairy tales and nursery rhymes to practice I-Messages because characters like The Ugly Duckling, Rapunzel, and Little Miss Muffett need some serious help.

They had a lot of fun making up I-Messages from the viewpoints of the characters. Although, some of them were not familiar with the nursery rhyme characters. One of them asked who Little Miss Muffet was and they had never heard of the dish running away with the spoon.

I have tweaked this lesson over the past 2 years and finally feel like I have cut it down to make sure there is enough time for them to truly understand the concept and to practice. I used to show a Kelso Rap in 3rd grade, but have moved it to 2nd this year. However, Kimmie and I have big plans to create our own Kelso video in the future. I just purchased this...