Friendship Group: The Struggle of a New Counselor

I started running a friendship group at my elementary school to build social skills and to help some of the students meet others in their grade level experiencing the same things they are. For some insane reason, I thought it would be an excellent idea to run the same group topic (friendship group) for grades 1-5. I meet with my first grade group on Mondays, second grade on Tuesdays (I think you get the gist...) all the way up to fifth grade on Fridays. Meaning I am running five groups per week. For many seasoned counseling vets, as well as well-organized newcomers, this may seem like nothing. However, I am definitely willing to admit that this has not been the case for myself. Needless to say, this scheduling bind that I have found myself in has kept me busy. I started with a simple outline of the session group topics: 

•Session 1: Introduction/Group Rules/ “Getting to Know You”

•Session 2:  Qualities of a Friend/ “What is a friend?” 

•Session 3: Different kinds of friends/ Making Connections 

•Session 4:  Talking and Listening Rules of Friendship/ Communication Building 

•Session 5:  Friendly behaviors/ Leading and Following 

•Session 6:  Friendly Skills/ Sharing (1-2)                Friendship Blockers/Reputations (3-5) 

•Session 7:  Friendly Skills/Games and Taking turns (1-2)   Saying No/ Handling Rejection (3-5)

•Session 8: Friendship STARS/ Closure 

I found these session topics with a little help from 1. Google and 2. The Awesome PDF Resources Below: 

• Super Helpful Friendship Group PDF- K-2
• Definitely Helpful Friendship Group PDF-3-5

Questions for my School Counselors out there: 

• What groups are you running? 
• How did you decide your topics for each session? 
• Have you ever implemented a free form small group at your school? How was it? 
• What are some excellent FREE resources you recommend? 
• What is a scheduling challenge that you have made before and how did you handle it?