Semester 1
MentoRship Project |
Post #1: Planning process |
8/15/22 - 9/14/22
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Author |
When contemplating what type of project my partner, Anna Luker, and I wished to complete for this semester, we decided we wanted to do something that would benefit kids. Because we have both been around kids often, we have seen first hand how some struggle in social settings due to outside reasons. Ultimately, we have been working to develop a mentorship program in which we can act as role models to select groups of children from the various elementary schools in our community.
Danielle Large, the social worker from Sugar Creek, has been assisting us with many of the logistical issues involved in our project. We have been communicating with her via email and virtual meetings. With the help of the principal and teachers, Danielle has selected three girls who would benefit from this program. We plan to travel to the elementary schools on Wednesdays and complete activities with the kids during a time in which they will not be pulled away from core instruction. Overall, we hope to work to develop their social and relational skills while giving them a good example to look up to. We hope to continue this at least throughout the semester, to provide them with a consistent source of encouragement. We have also met with the social work at New Palestine Elementary, as we hope to eventually travel to their school and work with another group of students. |
Hello, my name is Raeann Gavin. I am a senior at New Palestine High School and I am very excited to be a part of the service learning class!
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POST #2: Getting Prepared |
In order to be ready to actually meet with the kids, we had to prepare lesson plans and get all of our supplies together. We started by narrowing down our ideas into specific topics we wished to focus on for each of the different days. We then formed activity ideas that would fit into these categories. Researching online for various activities helped us greatly in finding beneficial lessons. There were a lot of helpful resources, and we were able to narrow them down to the age level and focuses that we wished to work with teh girls on. Then, we met with Danielle Large (the social worker at SCE) to discuss our plans and ensure that she believed they would be helpful for the kids. Next, we had to go shopping for the supplies that we needed, including Jenga, card making supplies, and paint. The jenga game we plan to play includes different colored pieces so we painted the colors chosen. We still have some things to prepare for the weeks in the few, but we were able to get everything ready for our first couple of days and will continue to work throughout the week in preparing the future weeks.
Post #3: First visit!
Our first visit with the three girls from Sugar Creek went great! We were a little nervous going into it, because we weren't sure how they would react to us being there, but they were super excited. Since it was just the first day, we focused on simply getting to know each other. We did "get to know you" questions, so everyone got the chance to ask a question for the others to answer. This helped us just to kind of break the ice and see their personalities. We then played Pictionary for the last few minutes which they really enjoyed. We know that this group will be very fun to work with, and we are super excited to keep going back!
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Post #4: ScE updates and first visit to npe
For the past few weeks, we have been continuously going to SCE to meet with our group girls. We have done four different "lessons," and they seem to be really enjoying them. They have thankfully been very receptive to the activities and are hopefully getting a lot out of them. On days we do not visit, we work on developing our lessons and shopping or working on anything we need to. We finished our Jenga game and made the question cards. Though we were nervous about how they would enjoy this, the girls' did great and asked to do it again sometime. We also made our first visit to NPE and met the group of boys we will be working with. We plan to do the same activities with them, as they are a similar age group, so it was easy to get started. We are excited to get to know them more!
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Post #5: New activities
Each new week we work on developing a new activity for the kids to complete that revolves around something beneficial for them to learn. These past few weeks there's been many times where some or most of the kids in our groups were absent so we had to improvise but it all ended up working out.
One thing that we did with the kids was create "Confidence Journals" which included prompts for each of them to answer and journal about. We bought each of them a small notebook and they all decorated the covers. Then, they wrote down things like their best personality traits, biggest accomplishments, and future goals. I think this really helped some of them who struggle with self-esteem and realizing what makes them special. Another activity that we made/had the kids work on was a small flip-book of various emotional responses. Each page had a different emotion (happy, sad, angry, etc.), and asked what you should do when this is occurring. We've had talks in the past with the kids about them struggling to control their emotions in the heat of a moment so we hoped this would be helpful for them to have and be able to look back on. We also did a fun activity during the week before thanksgiving break to encourage the kids to think about what they were grateful for. It was really fun to see their creativity come through and they all encouraged each other, too. Also, the things they wrote down for what they were thankful for were all unique and they thought them through a lot. Overall, it has been really rewarding and fun to get to know each of the kids and be able to talk with them each week. I feel as though they have really been opening up with us and making the most out of each of our group meetings. Next week will be our last week and I am really going to miss each of the kids! |