What's Happenin' at Shaw Heights

Goodness, I'm sorry I've been MIA with these blogs.  The end of the year is great but so hectic and ever-changing.  Classes have been mixed up and some days I don't see all my hours.  Ugh.  But we've been having so much fun, making great memories, and having solid conversations about life.  I'm proud of these kids. Mentor Mondays have been a great time for mentors to share successes with mentoring and also a time for mentors to bond together.  We've been playing games, recruiting mentors for next year, writing letters to mentees, and now planning an EOY party! Working on school work, learning targets, and EOY assignments has been a priority for kids as well.  I have loved seeing the kids work hard and support each other in making sure they level up next year. Thanks to Alex over at Scott in all the days we've actually had normal classes I started our Social Justice unit and it's been going great!!  The kids are loving this topic, the convers...

I can't believe another week has come and gone.  And what a week it was. Mentor Monday was spent working on an application for future mentors and playing the beloved game Spoons!  So.Much.Fun. Tuesday was testing again so it was low key over here.  I found an awesome logic puzzle (if you don't know these, look into them!!).  Albert Einstein created it so I hung onto him and made Tuesday all about Einstein!  I put his picture in an envelope and allowed the kids to ask yes and no questions to figure out what was in the envelope.  They LOVED this.  After they found out it was him, they watched a short video of 15 surprising things about Einstein and let me tell you, they were surprising!  Then the most eventful thing happened during 7th hour...a lock down and controlled release.  Luckily Shaw had it down and the whole process was safe, communicative, and efficient.  My kids and I made it a game; whoever guessed who was going home next w...

Goodness, these kids have been testing ALL week!  Monday was normal but after that the kids tested every day for hours on end.  They persevered and worked SO hard though, wow!  I'm so proud of them.  Testing it's over for 7th and 8th grade though, so it'll be another long week. Testing changed our schedule so much that this week was all about meditating, coloring, games, and destressing.  Every kid needed something different so that's how I ran classes.  Friday was all fun though; we played The Cup Game (from Mentor Monday a few weeks ago) and Group Sentences.  The kids LOVED both games!  However, two classes were lucky enough to play Spoons, a card game where you make a 4 of a kind then grab a spoon!  If you're not fast enough, you're out!  Both classes couldn't get enough of the game.  It was such a fun way to end a stressful week. Hope everyone got to relax when it snowed Saturday then got outside when the sun came out!...

This week was already messed up due to CMAS testing and we had Friday off...woohoo!  Having Friday off made for an easy transition back into school after Spring Break! On Monday, we had a mentor meeting with games, talking about spring break, and reeving up for testing.  I heard from many mentors that they were already stressed about CMAS so that helped me plan for the rest of the week.  Tuesday was a CMAS practice day so classes were significantly shorter than usual.  The kids played a game in their mentor/mentee pairs then had the rest of the time to check-in with each other.  Lots of pairs played games or talked about break and testing.  It was a nice time for the kids to spend time together. Due to the amount of kids stressing about testing in the next few weeks, Wednesday was for Circle Talks.  The topic of the circle top was the same for each class; SCHOOL...anything with school; testing, grades, assignments, teachers, stress, high school, et...

What a great week we had!  Finally a week with no snow days, fire drills, or messed up days!  Mentor Monday the kids worked on their mentor slides for the end of the year YESS celebration.  The slides look great!  Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday were full of great things!  After seeing the holes my kids had in their cups the week before I created a lesson based around coping and overcoming obstacles.  We started with a circle in the middle of the room and difficult real-life scenarios where the kids had to choose whether they had control or not.  They moved inside the circle if they did and stayed out if they didn't.  We then discussed their thoughts.  It was pretty eye opening.  So many kids had different ideas of who had control but the biggest aha was that most kids wanted to REACT to the situation and come up with solutions based on control.  My kids have obviously been through a lot of trauma and hard times in their life sin...

What a crazy week?!  TWO SNOW DAYS?!  Every teacher at Shaw said this is like seeing a unicorn in WPS.  So, goodness we were all thankful!  Before the massive storm hit this is what we did... I did Mentor Monday with a twist this week; instead of our normal success and struggle sharing I spiced it up a bit.  We started with reviewing our goals then shared one success in our own lives, outside of YESS.  Most mentors shared that they passed a big math test in Mr. Hartman's class, have turned in multiple missing assignments, or won their basketball game.  It was great to hear the kids be proud of themselves and take the focus off their mentees for a day.  The kids then wrote a motivational sticky note for their mentee and found a way to surprise them with it.  I got to see some mentees read theirs later that day or on Tuesday and their faces just lit up when they read them.  This is something I'll do more often with mentors and I'm going ...