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!