October 16th - 19th

Wow, what an amazing week! It was only four days, but we got a lot done and parent/teacher conferences were great fun.

On Monday, I was out of the building, but the mentees carried on with their usual Why Try program with Katrina. The mentors were scattered throughout the building and utilized their time wisely by either working on homework or conversing with one another about the challenges they have been facing with their mentees.

Tutoring Tuesday was successful, as well. The scholars took stock of their missing assignments, as usual and there was extra weight to this exercise since conferences began the following evening.

We began the "Today I Choose..." lesson on Wednesday by watching a TEDx Talk by Dr. Valerie Mason-John. We skipped the first part of the film due to language and began at the 3:00 mark. The kids really enjoyed learning about "stinking thinking" and how it can negatively impact their daily lives. If you'd like to check it out, click here! When we continued the lesson on Thursday, we devised lists of positive thoughts we plan to use to drown out our "stinking" thoughts. Check out some examples below!

The students came up with their own examples and we Kagan-ized the lesson by participating a structure that allowed everyone to share their ideas and gather suggestions from their peers.

It was a wonderful time and the scholars enjoyed ending the week on such a positive note!

October 9th - 13th

Hello, readers! Please pardon the delayed entry.

On Monday, the mentors and I discussed the term "confidentiality" and why it's important in a trusting relationship. Naturally, mandatory reporting is a part of this discussion and there was a robust conversation around what to tell and to whom.

Tuesday, students continued their efforts to stay on top of their school work. Most scholars brought work to complete and a few mentors focused their energy solely on their mentees. I'm always proud of how the students guide each other through difficult assignments!

We discussed personal goals on Wednesday and referenced the Values Worksheet from a few weeks ago. Everyone set a solid EmoSMART Goal and even discussed which people from their Community Maps could help them achieve that objective!

The students wrote 6-Word Sentences on Thursday, then decorated them. Many kids struggled to sum up their lives or personalities in six words, but they pushed through the barrier and accomplished the task.

On our spooky Friday-the-13th, we finished our 6-Word Sentence assignment, then played a cool word game called Rattled. It's an awesome way to boost kids' vocabulary skills because they get a string of eight random letters. Their job is to work with their Kagan team to make as many words as possible in two minutes.

September 2nd - 6th

Last week, we dedicated our time to trust: What is it? What builds it? What breaks it? Because our Community Reach teacher was absent on Monday, we moved our tutoring day up and worked hard on our core classes. On Tuesday, we completed the People of My World lesson and utilized a handy tree map to classify our family, friends, schoolmates, teammates, etc... The students did a lovely job and were surprised to see they had so many people in their lives.

Wednesday, we prepared ourselves for building our Trust Bridges by completing a worksheet that got us thinking about who we trust and why.

We built our Trust Bridges on Thursday and "Kagan-ized" the activity by adding challenges. The kids' mission was to include a 3-D element, three ways to build trust, and three ways to destroy trust. On top of that, each team member could only touch certain supplies. That means, if someone wanted to glue their paper, they had to communicate what they wanted to the person in charge of the glue. It's great fun for me to watch them maneuver around obstacles like these and the scholars get to practice their communication skills in a real-life application. Due to the 25-minute time limit, some teams struggled to complete the task, while others excelled! Take a look below.

We celebrated our September and October birthdays on Friday with some delicious snacks and more trust-themed activities. Students participated in trust falls, as well as a trust walk. For the trust walk, mentees went into the hallway to wait while the mentors set up an obstacle course. Then, each mentor walked their mentee through the course as carefully as possible. Once all the mentees went through, they were given a chance to re-make the course and guide their mentors.

Here's one final highlight for this post... A mentor quizzing his mentee on multiplication!

September 25th - 29th

Good morning and welcome to another edition of the YESS Institute at Scott Carpenter Blog. Last week, the 6th graders went off to Outdoor Ed for some unique experiences. That left the mentors behind and we put our time to good use! Take a look!

Monday was our first Mentor/Mentee Monday. On these days, the mentees work with Katrina on a special set of lessons that focus on social well-being. Mentors go to another space in the building for some targeted mentor training.

On Tuesday, we worked hard on our school work during Tutoring Tuesday. Most scholars brought homework from their core classes. Others practiced their reading skills on Achieve 3000.

Wednesday and Thursday were spent writing and acting mentoring skits. The students worked in their Kagan teams to write a skit about how the world's greatest mentor would respond to a conundrum. Here are some of the problems they were tasked with solving:
     1. A mentee who is disrespectful to everyone, including the mentor.
     2. A mentee who is sweet and kind, but can't sit still.
     3. A mentee who is clearly upset about something, but refuses to talk about it.
     4. A mentee who is so shy, they miss a lot of school.
These scenarios are common issues faced by mentors here and I was impressed with how they utilized mentoring best-practices in their skits. Many mentors are tempted to ask me for help whenever they run into an issue, so I challenged them to avoid using me as a resource in their work. They rose to the challenge by utilizing other mentors, school counselors, positive reinforcement, trust-building conversations, and even jokes to help their acting partner open up. All the scholars did an outstanding job with this assignment! Below, you'll see a piece of work related to the skit. Students were tasked with creating a Bubble Map that describes the qualities of an impactful mentor, then write about two qualities they would like to work on throughout the school year.

Friday, as usual, we practiced social skills via games. I'm constantly surprised by how many tiny disagreements arise while playing board games and this is an excellent opportunity for kids to practice conflict resolution in a low-risk environment.