Mentor Monday & 6 Word Sentences

Cora's "6 Words" worksheet.

Extra 6 word sentences from Cora.

This past week in YESS we hosted our first "Mentor Monday," a day where I take the mentors to another classroom where we work on leadership while the mentees stay in our YESS class with our school therapist, Tiffany Johnson. We had a great day with the mentors discussing roles and expectations and our mentors are very ready to help! We also took some time for each mentor to write him or herself a short letter about his or her new mentee. They were asked to name one hope, one fear, and to set one goal for their relationship with their mentee (we molded these letters after our Time Capsule lesson). I know that reading these letters on our last Mentor Monday come May will be very meaningful for our mentors.

Breann offered solutions to her 6 word sentence--very impressive EQ skills from a 2nd year mentor and 2nd year class president. 

The mentees had a great day with Ms. Tiffany as they did several fun team-builders and decorated the folders they will be using with her all year. I was happy to hear so many mentees saying what fun they had had and how much they are looking forward to Ms. Tiffany's class this year.

Ze'Aira did a wonderful job explaining a very personal and painful memory in her 6 word sentence.

Josiah, a new 6th grade mentee, explains in a 6 word sentence how he would feel without his mentor, Ean.

"Bikers" with the 6th grade team.

Last week we did a challenging exercise that asks our scholars to wax poetic. This lesson, called "6 Words," is a favorite among mentors who have done it before but often proves to be a mental challenge for new mentors and mentees. They are asked to write four "6 word" sentences about an important relationship in their lives, how they feel about life, the kind of mentor/mentee they do NOT want to be, and one that sums them up right now. It was wonderful to see how many different sentences our scholars created, and several mentors filled up the back of their worksheets with more sentences as they enjoyed it so much.

On Thursday, I worked with each scholar to identify his or her strongest sentence which they then illustrated. We are planning to display these in our classroom as they are very strong pieces of artwork. We did a gallery walk on Friday to go over every piece of art, and I had each scholar choose a different 6 word sentence from their own with which they felt a connection. They then had to share out to the class why they felt connected to that specific 6 word sentence. They also had to share out their own work. It was great to see how many scholars connected with numerous other sentences!

We had a pretty fun week at Shaw as it was spirit week! Monday was a tea party or a PJ party; Tuesday was Twin Day (I was a "twin" with three other 6th grader teachers); Wednesday was bikers or surfers; Thursday was super heros or super villians; and Friday was school colors day. I had a blast dressing up with our scholars and our staff--hope you enjoy the pictures!

Ean sharing my Buzz Lightyear costume on super hero day! 

Next week we will be building our "trust bridges"--certainly a favorite lesson with our mentors and one that really helps build the connection between mentor and mentee.