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!

Ranum Week 17

Hello and welcome to the final post of 2016!

I can't believe it's already Winter Break. It was a great first semester filled with lots of laughs and learning. I think students and teachers are both excited for the very much deserved break.

This final week we focused on a big project called Emotion Sculptures. The idea of the project was for mentors and mentees to choose any emotion they have felt recently and try to create an abstract sculpture of that emotion. Pretty simple directions, they could be as creative as they wanted to be as long as they could explain the emotion and why they chose shape it in the way they did. Here are a few examples:

I was very impressed by what some of the students created (they are way more creative than me). They really took the project head on and ran with it.

I wish everyone a happy and safe holiday and looking forward to 2017!

Ranum Week 16

Welcome back for Week 16 at Ranum Middle School.

This past week we discussed anger, and peaceful conflict resolution. It was perfect because we talked about different things that made us frustrated which led to a lot of our anger. We also found out that most of us do not take the time to go back, think about the cause and how we could've handled the situation better or even to go back to the person we had fought with and figure out what happened. There were a lot of great discussions and it's obviously a big topic that everyone can relate to.

After anger, we talked about conflict resolution, so basically how we solve some of those anger outbursts. Again, this was very helpful because it broke down whatever conflict happened to you into very simple steps that allow you to try to avoid the same thing from happening again in the future. Here is an example from one of the students:

Another great week in the books and just one more week until Winter Break!

Ranum Week 15

Hello and welcome back!

After a nice week long Thanksgiving Break we dove right back into where we left off, emotions.

Before we continued with emotions, we had Mentor Monday. We discussed leadership and started learning about a current leader in our world, Malala Yousafzai. Students learned her backstory and how she came back after being targeted by the Taliban. She is a huge supporter of education, specifically a woman's right to education. The mentors loved learning about her and her inspirational story.

Tutoring Tuesday went well with students being asked to check in with all of their teachers to find out where they are behind. Mentors are also required to check in with their mentees teachers to insure they are on the same page.

Wednesday through Friday was all about the Emo Trolls. We talked about what they are, where they come from and how to handle them. The kids loved the analogy and the variety of Emo Trolls out there. We discussed how sometimes we act as Trolls for a variety of reasons and we related it back to how our Hot Buttons can sometimes trigger these Trolls to come out. After discussion, they were required to draw each Emo Troll and give a personal definition and example. Here is one of the students posters:

Overall, it was a great and fun week. Looking forward to continue with emotions this week!