April 25th - 29th

This week, YESS students continued working academics in our "Tuesday Tutoring" day. Mentors are doing an excellent job of assisting their mentees with everything from literacy to math to science. The focus on academic achievement is going a long way to ensure students' success. Discrimination was the topic of discussion the rest of the week and scholars participated in a lesson on microaggression, as well as an activity that reinforced the idea that stereotypes are labels that are unfair and not entirely true. They did a great job and the conversations we had were extremely insightful!

Scholars writing examples of stereotypes

April 11th - 15th

It's great to be back at Scott! The kids have made the transition from "full-time mom" to "working mom" much easier, thanks to their enthusiasm and positivity.

This week, we got back into the swing of things with Mentor/Mentee Monday Meetings. During that time, many mentors expressed concern that their mentees were behind in school work. We agreed that a weekly homework day would be extremely beneficial, so as per their suggestion, mentors will collect mentees' work each Monday, then tutor the mentees during YESS on Tuesdays. I'm extremely proud of their investment in the success of their mentees and how well Ms. Coleman strengthened the bonds between all YESS students! On Tuesday, we began implementing our homework day. Wednesday, I had the privilege of honoring some of the students with an ice cream party, which they earned through their hard work while I was away. Thursday and Friday were spent studying truancy and creating solutions for students who ditch school. They are creating slide shows that provide details of a program to increase attendance, then presenting them to the class.

Josiah explains his group's solution to the attendance problem.

Enovy and Juan are working hard to create their slide show!

This group had the audience participate in an activity their program would include!

Last week was pretty intense as we were getting to know our anger. It was interesting to see what triggered most of the kids anger. Dealing with this intense emotion I see that most kids at this age are having the same outcome with their emotions. The kids all had very similar physical, emotional, and behavioral outcomes. By doing this activity  I think the kids now realize that anger can lead to health issues and they need to recognize their symptoms caused by anger.We also talked about how to handle our anger and the consequences dealing with anger and how they affect us at home and at school.The kids ended the week by doing some role modeling on decision making.The mentors decided to have a surprise party for their mentors on Friday after their decision making activity.

week of January 25-29

This week was a busy week.  We started the week on the self esteem activity. Kids worked on charting their self esteem  every day. It was interesting to see how some kids self esteem fluctuates with the weather. LOL. They also worked on the self esteem rainbows and mentor/mentee worked together by describing each other and putting those words on the rainbow. I really liked that the science teacher came into class and told the kids that the rainbows looked liked the layers of the earth, Towards the end of the week we talked about values and why we value certain values over others.After the kids did the worksheet the mentee/mentor paired up and discussed what values are most important to them and why.We ended the week by doing the I am Poem. I cant wait to read the poems next week.

January11th-15th

This week at Scott Carpenter the kids worked on Roadblocks and detours which helped them acknowledge the obstacles that may be keeping them back from their successes. Students were divided into groups and they all took turns trying to "drive" through the road blocks while having the blindfold on. Each time the road block was rearranged so that the driver did not know where they might be.
After this part we talked about roadblocks and detours and gave examples of both. The second part of this activity was one driver and the person behind them would be the vehicle. That student would guide them through the roadblocks and make sure that they would reach their destination. We had a discussion after wards about what they thought were roadblocks in their lives and what kind of detours they can take that can somewhat help them get to where they want to. We also talked about support groups and who or what could make their journey easier.

January 5th-8th

 

First week back from winter break and it was a good week.
Getting to know the students and building that bond between student-teacher.
This week we finalized our research on universities and got a better understanding about what it is going to take to be successful. Looking forward to next week.

December15-18

Shadowing Mrs. Sankovich at Scott Carpenter for the last two weeks has been very enjoyable. Meeting the kids and learning about them has been wonderful. We went on a field trip to CU Denver and I think the kids enjoyed themselves. I think everyone is ready for their holiday break. See everyone in 2016.