My New Group - Lunch Bunch

I have been pouring over blogs lately, lots and lots of blogs. I am amazed and very thankful there are so many out there full of ideas. They have helped me in my counseling position in the past and are continuing to allow me to improve things as the year goes by. Last weekend I decided since my Career Cafe is taking a while to get off the ground, I need to do something else in the meantime. I have three professionals lined up already to speak, but still lack quite a few students to interview for take interest inventories for a career path. Like always I started reading blogs and found great ideas. I am now working on starting a Lunch Bunch. While Career Cafe is still in the plans (I worked on it more today), the Lunch Bunch is coming together much faster. I have the names of all our new students grouped together in eight different groups of various sizes. Some groups will be allowed to bring a friend, since they are smaller, some won't. I found an invitation on a blog and modified it to fit our school. I went to the Desktop publishing class to see if that teacher would help me make it so I could just copy it on cardstock, business card size. She had her class get on that project that very afternoon! I will have one to give to girls and one for boys and I think one that is mixed. The middle school kids I think are grouped in boy/girl groups due to their lunch schedule. I didn't want to just have students come in, eat lunch and talk to them. I wanted a little more activity than that. I started looking for quick games and even googled Lunch Bunch games and Lunch Bunch activities. I found a treasure chest of things to do! I found activities for the cafeteria, like possibly having table 'groups' compete against each other by answering trivia questions using one dry erase board per table until all questions are asked and points are tallied. The winning table comes to the office for a treat. There were so many great ideas, to be used with large and small groups. I'm adding checkers to my office to hold quick games. I already have Jenga type games to use. I'm developing some "I have, who has" type games and 'get to know me' games to be used, also. Once the new students are seen through Lunch Bunch I'll start groups that are going to be retesting and use study skills games. I'm hoping to have a Lunch Bunch going next week. The week after I'm hoping to start going to the elementary two days a week as discussed in earlier posts and requested by the superintendent. I requested the teachers to send me their preferred time on the potential two days already. With that in mind, my schedule in the middle school/high school will be Monday: administrative/catch up, necessary office things. Tuesday will be an elementary day of class guidance lessons. Wednesday will be Lunch Bunch (among other things) in the high school. Thursday, elementary lessons like Tuesday. Friday, among other things will be Career Cafe. This schedule will be keep me hopping, but I'm looking forward to everything. Still in the works for my program: a girls' night out for 4-6th grades, coffee with the counselor for parents (middle school/high school), breakfast with the counselor (both building). I'm the STUCO sponsor in the h.s. and am getting that rolling this week, too!