Week 21 at Scott Carpenter.

This week the YESS classes dived right back into YESS Curriculum after two weeks of getting to know each other and building trust again between students. On Monday, Mentors played a game that was like if Pictionary and telephone had a baby. The Mentors loved it, and we will be playing it later this week with the whole group. On Tuesday, Mentors and Mentees worked on homework, checked their empower and set goals for the week. Below is what the students had to fill out.

Then On Wednesday, the kids had testing, so we used our YESS period as a decompression session, and the students got to relax while we read The Hate You Give. On Thursday we started the Belief Systems unit where we explored how our family, the media and our thoughts impact how we view the world. We began with a musical chairs game where students had to stop at a chair when the music stopped and picked up a word on the chair and write about their ideas about each word. This activity gave the students an opportunity to discover how their own thoughts can impact their day. Such as, "If I go around school thinking I am stupid, then I will do stupid things in class and not pay attention. On the other side, "If I go around school thinking I am smart then I will have confidence in myself and I will try harder."

Then we talked about our Culture, lessons we have learned from our culture, and how our culture has impacted our viewpoints about different groups of people. I am continuously blown away by our students' ability to think deeper and question the world around them.

Week 20 at Scott Carpenter

Hope everyone had a wonderful 3 day weekend! Last week was a ton of fun. We sent the week getting to know each other and bond. On Monday, the mentors had a great time playing games and getting more comfortable with each other. Then on Tuesday, we did a speed dating style activity for the mentee to meet all the mentors and choose their top three students they wanted as their Mentor. On Wednesday the pairs were revealed, and the Mentor-Mentee pairs had a series of problems to solve together. 

They ranged from silly things like, "If aliens came down to earth and stole everyone's voice what would you do," to more serious problems like, "You cannot leave the city, but it has no water, what do you do?" This activity got the pairs talking to each other and was aimed to build a foundation of trust and comfort. On Thursday we had a class competition where Mentor-Mentee pairs had to go to the internet to find answers to a scavenger hunt. Some of the questions were easy, some, I had to search for the answer!

 Such a great week and look forward to having another week of building trust and community in all the new classes!

Week 19 at Scott Carpenter

Hope everyone had a wonderful Holiday break. Scott Carpenter Middle school students came back with such positive and exciting attitudes! What a happy and energetic way to start off the new semester! It has been a crazy week of trying to figure out everyone's new schedules and make sure everyone was in the right spot. All student schedules were changed to help ensure students were in tighter levels this semester. What does that mean? All new YESS classes!! While the majority of my students are still YESS students from last semester every class was mixed up. This means we spent the majority of last week getting to know each other's names, building trust, and building community. It definitely feels like the beginning of the year but we will get right back on track and continue working!

 
On Friday, we had our first all-school assembly that was full of games that the teachers eventually won! Last semester some of the teachers volunteered to take a pie in the face if we reached the fundraising goal for the Book Fair. In the last hour of the book fair, the community pulled through and we went over the expected amount! This past Friday the teachers had to live up to their promise. Below is a video of yours truly getting a semi-violent pie in the face.