Hot Buttons & Hot Cider!

It is so very hard to believe that is will be our final posting for the YESS blog at Shaw Heights for the 2016 calendar year! Time has really flown by this semester as I got to know each and every one of our YESS scholars. As I write this, I am already missing my time in the YESS classroom, for being with our scholars is truly a rewarding experience.

This past week we did a lesson on "Hot Buttons"-- on what, exactly, makes us angry. Many of our scholars were looking forward to this lesson as they all stated how much the worksheet revealed about their tendencies to get upset, and how empowered they all felt after identifying their major triggers. Our mentors are really stepping up at this point in the semester, taking a lot of ownership over their mentees' work and celebrating their mentees' successes. While this lesson certainly brought up a lot of emotion for all of our scholars, our mentors did a wonderful job guiding their mentees through the assignment.

We wrapped up our year by having a wonderful donut and hot cider party which was hosted by Tony Streno. Our scholars were overjoyed at the sight of the delicious donuts, and many had never heard of hot cider, let alone had any. We were so very thankful for Mr. Streno's generosity. To wrap up our discussion on EQ vs. IQ and the need to establish healthy skills such as self awareness, social awareness, self management, and relationship management, we watched the movie "Elf" while enjoying our treats. In the film the main character is an "elf" named Buddy, who is really a human who was adopted by elves as a baby, and is on a journey to find his real father. Therein lies the conflict of the film, however, as Buddy is very emotional but has no boundaries, and his real father is driven by his desire to make money without care or cause for the feelings of others. Our scholars loved watching the film and we paused throughout to point out the need for Buddy to be more socially aware, or for his father to work on relationship management skills.

The front of the YESS holiday card.

The back of the YESS holiday card.

All in all it was a wonderful end to a fantastic year with our YESS scholars at Shaw Heights, topped off by the display of artwork on behalf of our Shaw Heights scholars on the YESS company holiday card. Many of our scholars turned in impressive drawings of what YESS means to them in relation to the holiday season, and four were chosen to be on the card this year. We are so proud of our amazing artistic scholars.

Here's to wishing everyone a wonderful holiday season--we cannot wait to be back together in January for the new year!