November at Scott

November felt like it blew by in our YESS classroom because we have been having so much fun! First, the fun stuff! One of our Mentors, Andres, made a video in his broadcasting class that helped the school win a contest over the radio. The school then did a canned food drive and the radio station came out to the school and we had a big dance party! We also had a "Quincebrero" for one of our students on fun Friday. This had been a running joke in the class for a couple weeks because a student had mispoke Quinceanera, so the students in Period 2 spent about 2 weeks planning this party, made invitations, brought cupcakes and drinks, and had all the traditional dances. Can you guess who's Quincebrero it was?

This month we finished our Culture and Identity unit by talking about power and privilege. We did some fun active games to demonstrate power which the kids really enjoyed. Then in the first activity to talk about the privilege we had an auction. Students were broken into groups, all given different amounts of money, and then a list of privileges they had to buy. The auction was fun as they fought over privileges and either wasted all their money on one or were left empty-handed with money at the end. The discussion after the auction was by far my favorite as some students were incredibly angry to start out with the least amount of money and the connections the students made to real life. Then we did an activity called "walk the line" where a statement was read out loud and students had to cross the line if they felt comfortable saying the statement applied to them. Some questions were tough, some brought up some really deep feelings, and some were very empowering for students. But again, the debrief after was where the magic happened. We talked about how privileges can look different, for example, being able to participate in a cultural event and share their heritage with their community, is not a privilege everyone has. Then we talked through the hard stuff: experiencing homelessness, experiencing abuse, experiencing racism. Then the next week we moved into gratitude since it was Thanksgiving! Students created a thankfulness tree, wrote letters to teachers, and participated in a thankfulness class Instagram challenge.

This month I would like to highlight a very special mentee named Alexis. Alexis started the school emanating the squirrel mentality. He had a lot of trouble paying attention, staying on task and completing his work. By parent-teacher conferences in October, Alexis had not turned in one assignment. As I sat with his mom and told her what was going, all of which Alexis had to translate, she looked at him with tears in her eyes said, "Hijo, estoy muy preocupado. Que esta pasando?" Son, I am very worried. What is going on? Alexis didn't have an answer and looked down at his shoes and said he was sorry and that he would try to make it up to her. By the end of that week Alexis had all his missing work turned in, was paying attention in class, and was ignoring his friends who usually distracted him. A couple weeks later Alexis would come into class and ask to do work for Science class. He said he had a big test later in the week and he really needed to study. On fun Friday, while other students were playing games and talking, Alexis sat and studied. When he got up to leave he shouted at me, "Miss, I am so nervous!" I told him that he has been working hard all week and I was sure he would do great. And what do you know, Alexis got a perfect score!

The Mentor I would like to highlight this month is Alejandro. This is his second year as a mentor, and while overall he is a great student, he loves to play video games on his computer. Alejandro has a mentee who loves to do the same and is often just zoned out. The past two weeks, after having a pretty in-depth conversation with Alejandro about his role as a mentor, he has really turned it around and focused on helping his mentee. They both have been actively engaged in group activity and discussion as well as completing their work on time!

October at Scott Carpenter

October at Scott has been a blast! First, to kick off Red Ribbon Week and to inspire kids to say no to drugs we had a helicopter come to our school?! A bit odd but it was special nonetheless. Then we dove right into learning about our values and the kids really enjoyed the activity. Basically they started with 20 cards of things they loved and over the series of events had to eliminate 15 of them! The last five were the most important things in their lives and told them a lot about what they valued. 

We had a teamwork and inclusion day today where we had a series of challenges that each team had to participate in from all different knowledge bases. Some were math questions, some about music, some about the history and then some physical activities. The picture is of two students competing for the longest plank hold... this is them at 3 minutes and 45 seconds!!!! Let’s be clear here... I can maybe do it for 30 seconds and they made it to 4 minutes! 

This month we also focused on Culture and Identity. We explored both our classroom culture and our personal cultures in various ways. Below are a couple pictures of students drawing about their cultures. As well, we explored our individual identities through readings from A House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros, bubble maps that included all the things they identify with, and very beautiful identity poems.

This month I would like to highlight a young mentor and mentee pair. Aaron is a 7th grader who is quite quiet but who tries his hardest every day he is in my room. He is gentle, kind, and very supportive of his mentee. He has started to come out of his shell a lot this year and is participating in group discussions and offering to lead some games in class. His Mentee Adrian is not shy at all. Adrian is a wonderful student who has a brilliant imagination and whatever group he is in wins every time for the most creative ideas. He is a powerhouse in group discussions and always has very beautiful and thought-provoking insights. As a team, Aaron and Adrian bring calm, motivation, and inspiration to the entire classroom.

September at Scott Carpenter.

September at Scott Carpenter has been a blast!
We have worked extremely hard at creating a strong classroom culture that allows all
students to feel safe, supported and listened to.
We have worked through many lessons this month including: Creating Community,
Coat of Arms, Shared Agreements, Spaghetti Towers, Speed Matching, and Culture.
We watched a short movie about Ubuntu, which is a South African concept that deals with
community and at its base explains, "If you're ok, I'm ok. If you're not ok, I'm not ok."
The students then created their own definition of Ubuntu and created shared agreements
based on those definitions. We had a blast working together to build spaghetti towers!
This month we also played a game called Shark-Tank that the students loved!
They got a random object and had to create a sales pitch for the object and sell it to a panel
of judges, or sharks. The creativity was amazingly silly and impressive.

We also made projects to represent our cultures. Students worked incredibly hard on these and still perfecting them!

This month I would like to highlight a student has shown tremendous growth.
Angelo started the year off with a little bit of a struggle.
He had a hard time focusing, staying in his seat and sometimes keeping his hands to himself.
He and I worked together to create a behavior plan that worked for the both of us and since
then Angelo has shown impressive growth. He is on task, he works hard,
he contributes positively in classroom discussion and most importantly he has taken leadership
roles without being asked. He is even helping Mentors who are struggling with their Mentees.

Then there is Ms. Ana. She has stepped into the Mentor role for the second time this year and
I cannot be more grateful for her!
Her class has a student who is need of a special kind of person to mentor them.
This student is very active, very unfocused and all over the place both physically and mentally.
He was placed with a mentor who had been unable to interact with him in a consistently
positive way. Ana stepped in, without being asked but asking me instead, to give it a try.
She has shown incredible patience, grace, and guidance to this young man.

August at Scott Carpenter

We have had such a great start the school year here at Scott Carpenter! The YESS Program has been filled with laughter, great conversation, and a ton of community building. August has been spent experimenting with group dynamics, working on some tough challenges you will see below, and really getting to know each other. 

The YESS students have learned and practiced circle talks and what it means to listen to each other to create spaces where we all feel heard. We have started building a comfort level with each other by coming up with skits to show the right ways to be in the classroom and the wrong ways to be in the classroom. These were wonderfully awkward to watch and the kids were able to safely laugh with each other. 

We have played a lot of fun team games together like Indiana Jones, the video below, where the class had to roll the ball as fast as they could to try to get the runner. We played Ellen's Game HeadsUp, video also below, which was filled with enthusiasm all day! 

This week we worked on a team challenge called Shark Tank where the students explored what it means to be an entrepreneur and maybe how hard it is to pitch their ideas. The teams were given a random item, like a jump rope, drum, fidget spinner, anything I had in my classroom really. Then they had to decide what the item is, what it does, and it couldn't be or do what the item actually was or did. They had to determine how much it cost to make, how much they were going to actually charge for it, and how much they were going to ask for from the Sharks (or Judges). Then they had to present to the Sharks and pitch their idea, this was also wonderfully awkward to watch as some of the pitches were just great. Thank you Portia at Adam's City Middle School for this idea! They are already asking to do it again next week. There is a video below of one of my favorite inventions inspired by Kylie Jenner!

Week 37 at Scott

The week we say goodbye. This week was full of events and sad goodbyes either to our 8th graders or to students who we know aren't coming back. We started the week watching The Hate U Give. THen passed out our time capsules from the beginning of the year. I know a bunch of the students had wished they put more of an effort into their time capsule as some were opened with funny, inspirational, memorable things inside. Then we had a fun Thursday this week and played a lot of different games with marshmallows, see below. Why I thought that would be a good idea with carpet, I'll never know, but the students had a ton of fun! On Friday the students spent the day in different fun rotations around the building and then had time to just play wherever they wanted.

To all the parents reading this: I have learned so much from each and every student this year and thank you for raising such wonderful kids.

To the Students reading this: Thank you for all your hard work and insight on tough topics this year. Each and every one of you has taught me valuable lessons that I will keep with me for next year and years to come.

To community members and leaders: Thank you for the constant support and willingness to keep this program running.

I cannot wait for next year!

Week 36 at Scott

As we come to a close of the school year there is a lot of hard work going on around Scott. This week we finished our social justice projects, worked on missing work and started packing up the classroom! The 8th graders spent Friday at their 8th-grade celebration at Elitches and the rest of us had fun making forts in the classroom and having some fun with nerf guns! I also spent the week finalizing mentors for next year and glad to say I had to cap the list because we have so many interested students! So excited and sad to say goodbye to our 8th graders and excited to finish up the year strong and send off students to a wonderful summer!

Week 35

I wanted to give a special thank you to all the parents and students who helped make the YESS social a great event by donating snacks! On Monday the Mentors got time to work on missing work and finish their social justice projects. On Tuesday we had our end of year celebration for the YESS program at Ranum Middle School.

 The students got donuts and juice and then spent the morning listening to fellow students talk about their experience with YESS.Special shoutout to Mr. Sebastian for giving a speech to over 300 kids about his personal journey!Another special thank you to DR Adcock for speaking at the event. And to all the students who got up to introduce speakers and students. Congratulations to Ms. Alexis and Mr. Andres for winning Mentor and Mentee of the Year!!!





























On Wednesday and Thursday, students presented their social justice projects. The students did an amazing job picking an issue that they thought was important and creating a Google slide presentation. The presentation included a description of the issue, a video that explained the issue, and three ways we as a class could bring light to the issue or help solve the issue. A lot of students chose racism, global warming, bullying, and mental health. On Friday we had a fun Friday and we did our usual and then YESS SOCIAL!! We had a blast and students helped run Volleyball games, Soccer, Football, Basketball, music in the gym and the best snack bar we have had all year! Thank you to all the students who helped!

Week 34 at Scott Carpenter

As we come to the end of the school year the YESS classrooms are filled with a lot of different emotions. The 8th graders are getting ready to graduate and head to high school, the 6th and 7th graders are getting excited (some worried) for summer, but I am incredibly impressed by the student's ability to keep working hard! On Monday the mentees stayed with Ms. Katrina and worked on Why Try curriculum while the Mentors worked on their social justice projects and missing work. We switched our tutoring day back to Tuesday and I was beyond impressed by student work ethic.

 On Wednesday we did a lesson centered around Empathy and the students wrote a story based on a random shoe that was put in front of them. The assignment asked them to look at the show and create a unique story about who wore that shoe, where they came from, and what their life was like. I wish everyone could read all of them because the students were really creative and some were absolutely hilarious. As well on Wednesday, 5th graders from the district came to visit and a lot of our YESS students performed in either Jazz Band or Choir and others helped give students a tour of the school after.





 We didn't have school last Friday so on Thursday some classes stayed in the classroom and played board games and a much beloved gaga ball while others went to the gym to play kickball, scatter ball and basketball. 

Week 33 @ Scott

What a week here at Scott! On Monday the school finished up testing due to the missed day of school the week prior and classes were short so students worked on missing work. Then on Tuesday, we were on a special schedule to accommodate the Social Celebration of the end of testing, so students finished their mask activity. On Wednesday all classes participated in a circle talk. In this talk, I used some time to reset expectations around being in class, reiterated that even though we only have 4 weeks of school left we are still working and being the best scholars possible and to address the increase of bad words used in my class. Each YESS class decided on their own unique consequence for what happens when someone uses foul language in the classroom. The ideas ranged from $20 in a cup to tape on their mouths or wearing funny hats in the corner for 5 minutes. We settled on things like 2 warnings and then a minute gets taken away from Friday and 10 jumping jacks where the entire class counts them out. Then the rest of the circle talk was spent talking about school culture and what we as a class could do to improve it.  Two classes decided that throwing a YESS social would be a great way to spread school spirit and we got approval today! On Thursday each student wrote an outline of things they are missing, things they could be working on in tutoring, and learning targets they could work on. This will be used for the rest of the year and the students can check things off as they finish. On Friday each class voted on what they wanted to do for Fun Friday. In one period they wanted to play card games and watch La Rosa de Guadeluope.


We had fun playing Egyptian Ratscrew and learning a new game called golf. In third period we went to the gym and played a 3 on 3 basketball tournament and even I played! My team took the cake! Another class voted to stay inside and watch superhero movies to prepare for the weekend blockbuster hit "Avengers: Endgame." And the last class voted to spend our time running around and playing outside in the beautiful weather! I look forward to planning the social with the kids this and next week and hope our energy flows high this week!

Week 32 @ Scott

This week was full of testing and high emotions! On Monday the Mentors talked through some struggles and successes they are having with their mentees and got started on their masks early.

 On Tuesday all classes started their masks. On the front of the mask students decorated based on what they show the world and on the back they put all the things they hide from the world.

 Then at the end of the day, we had a controlled release due to a threat in the city. This led to no school on Wednesday. On Thursday we had testing which only gave about 25 minutes for each class. We spent Thursday talking through questions, fears, and lingering thoughts about the events of the week. Students were able to work through some of the feelings that had kept them up through the night and learned how to recognize what was real information and what were rumors. We also had some great conversations about how we represent different groups of people in the media. On Friday we had fun in the gym and played Mentors/teacher versus Mentee dodgeball and some all class basketball games. This week we are finishing up testing and have a fun social and dress down day tomorrow! Hope everyone has a great week!

Week 31 at Scott

Hi Everyone,
This week was very jumbled. On Monday Mentors worked on finishing their Mentor slides for the end of the year celebration. We had some really great photoshoot moments!

With Testing Season in full bloom, the students are working hard and getting a bit of time in YESS to decompress. Because both the students were exhausted from testing this week we played card games, especially Egyptian Ratscrew, which was my favorite game when I was young and now becoming a huge game in my classroom. We also played board games and watched the beloved show La Rosa de Guadalupe. This show is a great show that teaches very valuable life lessons and can be used as a literacy tool when we put the subtitles on! This week we are working on our final project for the Belief Systems Unit and will be making masks. I hope everyone has a great week this week and look forward to seeing great artwork from our students.

Week 30 at Scott Carpenter

Well, this week was interesting. Testing season is upon us and this week was yet another short week for students! On Monday the Mentors reviewed 9 different quotes from famous leaders around the world, picked their favorite quote and had to do some activities around the quote. One of the activities was a drawing contest to create a visual representation of the quote and some of them were incredible. On Tuesday we spent some time reading the Hate U Give. On Wednesday we had mock testing day and had shortened classes where we read more of the Hate U Give and played some clear your mind games. On Thursday we had our fun Friday and some classes went to the gym to burn off their energy. Other classes opted to stay in the room to have card tournament games. I want to let everyone in on a little secret. If you are struggling with a student or even your own child, teach them a card game and beat them! Not only does this stimulate a positive, sometimes competitive, relationship with the student, but it also stimulates them wanting to learn from you in a fun way and makes them want to keep coming back to play!

Week 29 at Scott Carpenter

What a week! This week the students had amazing energy leading up to Spring Break! We finished talking about the Wheel of Burnout and the Wheel of Caring. The students had great insight into what makes them feel like they want to give up and how they can break that cycle and advocate for what they need. On Thursday we started exploring different social justice issues because the students will be doing a class project at the end of the year to create change in their neighborhoods. This week we watched some videos that explored what causes hate to continue, what is global warming, the current state of water in our world, and what is it like to become a US Citizen. On Friday we had an assembly with a Police Officer from Boulder who is also a comedian and the kids loved him. He brought a friend who was a former Denver Broncos player who gave our kids a little Hawaiian culture lesson. And of course, fun Friday where we had some pretty intense card tournaments!

SHORT Week 28

Hi Everyone,
This week was incredibly short due to not one, but two, snow days! On Monday the mentors learned about values and brainstormed ways we can use our strongest values in class to show leadership. The most important value across all classes was family so we talked about ways we could make our classes feel like a family. I look forward to seeing how this plays out this week. On Tuesday we talked about boundaries. We discussed how boundaries are based on agreements about what is okay to do and what is not okay to do in any type of relationship, and also who is allowed to do what. We then played a game to determine what we think is ok and what is not ok with some fabulous scenarios I made up. Wednesday and Thursday we, of course, had off. On Friday another class needed the gym so we played games, watched silly videos and listened to music as our fun Friday. Heres a fun video of us playing with a unicorn game I got at a staff Christmas party a couple months ago. Look forward to a lot more fun and pictures next week!

Week 27 @ Scott Carpenter

This week was a whirlwind! Monday the Mentors got to work on our end of the year celebration powerpoint. The mentors had to pick a picture of themselves, a powerful quote, and their future career. On Tuesday we started talking about accountability and what taking responsibility for our own actions looks like. We explored excuses, how our attitudes or belief systems impact our choices and the difference between an explanation and an excuse. On Wednesday we did something a little different and had a circle talk. Circle talks give every person a voice and allow students to talk without fear of being interrupted. We started the talk out by discussing everything the students were frustrated about school and essentially they had about 30 minutes to just get it all out. Then I turned the conversation around on them and asked them to come up with ways that they can be accountable for what is happening at school. Then asked them, for the things that they can't be accountable for, how can they self-advocate for themselves to make things better. This part of the conversation was where the gold was found. For instance, students want to fight for a student council, or some type of structure, that gives the students a voice in decisions made here at Scott. In our Period 2 class, the students took it very seriously and already chose Ms. Amy, pictured below on the right, as student body president.





















 On Thursday we started talking about social justice themes in a very specific way. I showed the students a couple videos of modern "protest songs." We then discussed the themes in the videos, digested what Social Justice means and then I sent them on their way to find their favorite protest song. Music historically brings people together and what better way for the kids to start exploring social justice than through music? After they were done picking their song, telling me why they chose it, and what was the message, students worked on missing work. On Friday we had a lot of fun. We started the day off with a minute to win it challenge, where table groups competed against each other by trying to win 4 silly games. Then we played balloon volleyball, which was so slow it made them laugh. And last, we brought back the wonderful game of kickball, which a lot of students did not know how to play! What type of elementary school deprived these students of kickball... I will be investigating! Hope everyone has a great week this week!

Week 26 at Scott Carpenter

This was a short week for us here at Scott. On Monday the mentors got together and had a bit of fun playing games and learning some tips and strategies to be a good mentor. On Tuesday we learned about the Love Cup. Students explored the things in their life that drain them and the things that fill them with love and energy. They had a great time working on the Love cup project and thinking through this topic.

On Wednesday we had our tutoring day and students worked on missing work, finished up their love cup project and tried out some new educational websites about math. On Thursday we had our Fun Friday. We started out by playing Scatter Ball, which is a school favorite. Classes are really into playing an all class basketball game that is always filled with laughter, traveling and 5 or 6 missed shots at a basket. Look forward to another week filled with knowledge, laughter and building stronger bonds.

Week 25 at Scott Carpenter Middle School

What a wonderfully silly week we had at Scott Carpenter! Last week we explore the "Why" of why we get upset, stressed or hurt through a series of discussions. This week, we explored the "How." We learned all about Emotional Trolls which are the ways we react in unhealthy ways when we are upset. We also learned about Emotional Superheros, which is how we react in healthy ways when we are upset. On Tuesday the students had a class competition where they had to match each emo-troll with the correct behavior, why they act that way and the negative outcomes.

On Wednesday we played a review game about Emo-trolls and the students had to listen to a scenario where someone was acting out in an unhealthy way and then guess which Emo-Troll it was. Then we talked about Emo-Superheros and the students had to create a project that showed them as an Emo-Troll and as an Emo-Superhero. This activity gave students a chance to explore what helps them calm down and what they need to react to situations in a healthy way.

On this day we also did an activity where brave students got up and said a very important to our time song lyric in the voice of their Emo-Troll. See videos below! Thursday we had a great day doing a station version of our tutoring day. Students rotated between working on a grammar website, math website, checking their missing work on empower/ setting a goal for Low-Mass areas, and working on missing work. Every 8 minutes students rotated and this seemed to keep them focused and on task! On Friday we had a bit of a weird day because the 6th graders had a special event but the mentors had a great time bonding with each other!