Ranum Week 21

Hello!

This past week was all about accountability!

After Mentor Monday and Tutoring Tuesday we went through an entire PowerPoint about accountability. Students from most classes seemed to correlate being accountable with being responsible which was great. They also learned that there are times in life when we are faced with a difficult decision...we can either admit that something was our fault and deal with the consequences or we can be dishonest, feel guilt ridden and then make the consequences 10 times worse.

We had great discussions about times where we did the right thing and when we did the wrong thing. We talked about how easy it can seem at the time to just push something off and not take accountability for it but in the end it is definitely worth it just to admit something, take accountability, and deal with the repercussions.

On Thursday I gave the students a couple different scenarios and it was their job to end them in both an accountable way and an irresponsible way. They had a lot of fun with it and made up some pretty funny stories. Here is an example of some of their work:

We can't wait to get this week started, see you next week!

Ranum Week 20

Hello and welcome back!

Last week we worked on ESMART goals and I am poems.

ESMART goals are different from typical goals because you need to be able to justify and hold yourself accountable with an ESMART goal. ESMART is an acronym for Emotional, Specific, Measurable, Action Steps, Reasonableness, and Time oriented goals. If a student claimed they had a goal, they needed to back it up by filling in all of those categories or else it was more of a dream than a goal. Most students thought long term about future careers and where they'll be while some thought about the here and now and just really wanted to graduate from middle school.

Our next assignment was I am poems. I am poems are great because you get to do a self analysis and answer questions about yourself that you typically wouldn't even think about. The beginning of every line would start with "I" and it would be followed by "wonder", "feel", "cry", "dream", etc. This way students were challenged to think about themselves and only themselves. Here are a few examples of what the students came up with:

Overall this was another great week and we'll try to keep the great momentum we have going!

Ranum Week 19

First full week back since break and the students did an awesome job on our Heart, Mind and Soul project.

The idea of the project began by answering a bunch of questions that correlated with different parts of the body. For example, students were asked about different things in their lives that stress them out and that correlated with their shoulders because it can weigh you down and feel like a burden on your back. Another example was your heart correlating with your passions and things you care about.

Student's answers ranged from family stressing them out to bullying at school. Or their goals in life being graduating college and their passions being helping others.

Here is a picture of some examples, if you can zoom in you can see all of their answers!

Overall it was a great project and we're all excited for another short week this week!

Ranum Week 18

Welcome back!

It was a long winter break with a super short returning week. We were only in school 2 days last week (thank you snow storm!) but we managed to complete a couple of small activities. On our very first day back, we created basic goals to start the new year. Students could choose any goal that they wished. It could be school based, home based, sport based, club based, etc. Here is an example of one students' goals:

On Friday we played a team builder that challenged students to describe a word to their teammates with both verbal (taboo) and non verbal clues (charades). It forced students to be creative with their descriptions and get out of their comfort zone by trying to act out different words. I'm excited to get a full week in and see if the students are ready to finish the year strong.

See you next week!