Find a way to connect the classroom curriculum with your students on an emotional and personal level. This engages their brains, activating them for understanding. The HKIS Grade 3-4 team does the Middle East unit in simulation format, having different tribes within the classrooms face obstacles and experience opportunities to learn skills that apply to their personal lives. They took the learning to a personal level by having our counselor integrate the guidance curriculum into the unit. He ran conflict resolution workshops with our students where they used newly learned skills to work through tribal and personal difficulties outside of the classroom. Kasey Perry is the teacher who connected with the counselor, Trevor Cole, to integrate the counseling lessons into the social studies unit.