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
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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