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Activity Ideas
 

Looking for new ideas or activities or things to discuss with your student? Here are a few ideas that can help.

  • If your mentee is new to the school, talk about what is different and what is the same. Share your own experiences with new schools and settings.
  • Ask your mentee what she is looking forward to most during the school year and to describe the one thing she most wants to accomplish. Tell her what you want to accomplish during the same period.
  • Investigate new things that will be happening in your community and discuss how they will affect each of you.
  • Create an imaginary time capsule. What would each of you want future generations to know? Pick a place where you would bury it and decide when it should be opened.
  • Research political positions and candidates who will be on the ballot during upcoming elections. Talk with your student about the importance of voting and describe your experiences.
  • Fly a kite in the schoolyard.
  • Help your mentee search the Internet for an after-school job.
  • Initiate a discussion about dream vacations. Describe your dream vacation and ask your student to do the same.
  • If you like to plan ahead, invite your mentee to join in making holiday gifts for friends and relatives.
  • Read with and to your student. (Literacy is more than just being able to read and write. It is the ability to understand and communicate information and ideas by others and to others clearly and to form thoughts using reason and analysis.)
  • Read for information. Read maps, graphs, charts and recipes together. Learning how to read a bus schedule is an important skill in life.
  • If your student is older, try sharing more mature reading materials like newspapers, magazines and chapter books. Reading aloud increases your student’s listening comprehension and vocabulary. Ask your student’s teacher or school librarian to suggest books and magazines that are appropriate for your student’s age group.

Following are web sites containing information from reading tips to resources.

Printables/Activities

Houghton Mifflin Education Place

Family Education Network

Education for Kids

Mrs. Glosser’s Math Goodies

Crayola

General Resources for Adults

Scholastic Inc.

Reading is Fundamental

National Center for Family Literacy

ERIC Clearinghouse on Reading, English and Communication

National Institute for Literacy

Put Reading First: The Research Building Blocks for Teaching Children to Read

National Academies Press

Starting Out Right: A Guide to Promoting Children’s Reading Success

Kansas State Department of Education

Missouri Department of Education

Careers/College/Military

Number2.com

The Princeton Review

FinAid

FastWeb

Military.com

Salary.com

WetFeet, Inc.

Internships.com

Brain Track

Sports

AllSports

ESPN SportsZone

Sports Illustrated for Kids

Newspapers

Los Angeles Times

New York Times

The Washington Post

The Kansas City Star

Encyclopedia/Information

Encarta

Biography (A&E)

General Interest

The World Factbook

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

The White House

The U.S. Government

Adapted from information obtained from the following sources: MENTOR/National Mentoring Partnership, National Urban League, Owen Consulting, Inc., and the U.S. Department of Education.

 

 
 
 
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