Holiday Literacy

With the holidays here upon us, many mentoring pairs will be busy thinking of time off school or work, where they will be traveling or how busy their holidays will be with their family and friends. 

There are a ton of awesome ways that you can connect with your mentee during this season. It's a great time to try some new ideas, activities or games and also a great time to get kids reading and writing!!

For mentors who travel: It can be hard to connect with your mentee when you're on the road or far away for where you live. There are several simple ways to connect with your mentee even when you aren't around:

• Send your mentee a postcard of where you are. They will love seeing the picture and hearing some fun stories about what you're doing. This way, when you get home, they feel included in your trip and you can start conversations about  where they'd like to travel in the future!

• Exchange email addresses. If you mentee has access to a computer and it is alright with their parents, send them emails throughout the time you're gone. Show them pictures and places that you've gone.

For mentors staying at home: Many of us fall into a holiday stupor around this time of year. We drag our feet in the mornings and can't wait to get home in the evenings. Change up your routine during your meeting times. Try some new ideas:

•  One creative way to instill some literacy is to share holiday traditions. Write a story about what happens at your house during the holidays. Spend some time drawing pictures of these traditions, the decorations, the food, the family and then talk about them. It's a great way to share your experiences while showing your mentee that everyone celebrates the holidays differently

• Mad Libs! Holiday, winter and Christmas mad libs can be fun and funny. Check out sites like this one to find printable mad libs to get you both thinking and writing while making their own stories. Better yet,  you and your mentee can make up your own mad libs!

Whether it's filling in mad libs or talking about holiday traditions, you and your mentee will have fun thinking up new and creative ways to read and write over the holidays. Even if they don't know they're doing it!!

A Game to Remember

Since the start of my time at Youth & Shelter Services I have been meeting with an eighth grade mentee. Many days I think that she is having more of an impact on my life than I do on hers. She is always upbeat, kind and positive about the situations she encounters even though they are things most adults would struggle with for an eternity.

Everyone has those negative moments that will stick with us for a lifetime. My goal with my mentee was to provide her with a couple of positive experiences and hope that they would eventually outweigh the negatives. As I asked her about the things she wishes she could do, one of them was attend a football game.

The next week, I got an email saying the mentoring program was receiving free tickets for the last ISU game of the season! The joy on my mentees face cannot be described on paper. Not only did she do the typical jumping and screaming that many middle school girls do when they are excited, but she also ran into the Support Services office to tell everyone what we were going to do.

The entire game she was ecstatic and even after the game I was still getting texts saying, “I’m going to remember that day for the rest of my life!” Even though ISU lost, that game will always be a win in our hearts.

~Ashley

The GRIP Mentoring Story

GRIP has been a part of the YSS community as well as the Boone and Story County communities for just around 13 years. The GRIP Mentoring began in 1999 as a part of Youth and Shelter Services, Inc. in Ames, Iowa. We serve 8 school districts in Boone and Story Counties. The program serves over 350 matches a year! As we make matches throughout the year our numbers grow until March or April when we stop making matches for the year.

Our program goals are:

• The creation of positive mentor/student partnerships
• The improvement in academic performance
• Improvement of self-esteem.
• AND a mentor for every child who needs or wants a mentor

Our mentors are high school and college students and adults recruited from the community.

Matches are based on individual strengths, are paired by gender and a mutual commitment to a long-term friendship between the mentor and mentee.

According to our teacher surveys, students with a GRIP mentor showed significant improvement in academic performance and classroom behavior & attitude. The mentees also feel that having a mentor resulted in improved grades, better relationships at home and with friends, and greater interest in school and learning. So not only do the teachers see the changes, the kids feel them and are more self confident and academically inclined!

We love comments and questions, so feel free to post below or check out our website at www.yss.ames.ia.us/en/programs/grip_mentoring

Pair Up 4 A Purpose 5K Run/Walk

Besides great stories and activity ideas, we'd like to share some of the awesome events that GRIP presents or participates in. One such activity is our upcoming 5K fundraiser:

GRIP is hosting its 3rd Annual Pair up 4 a Purpose 5K Run/Walk on November 4th. The run will take place on Central Campus at Iowa State University. The event raises a lot of awareness around central Iowa and gives us at GRIP a chance to interact with our communities. It increases volunteer participation with the GRIP program, outside of the volunteer mentors we work with throughout the year.

There's the option to run as a pair and even a costume contest which is judged by Cy - the mascot of ISU. The event is sponsored by Panera so we will have tons of great food for after the race and door prizes which will be drawn before the race.

Check out our website or our facebook page for more information or to sign up!! http://www.yss.ames.ia.us/en/events/grip_mentoring_pair_up_4_a_purpose/

https://www.facebook.com/pairup4apurpose

Meet our match!

Every newsletter that GRIP puts out has a 'meet our match' section that spotlights one of our many amazing pairs. They discuss what they've done, some favorite activities and what mentoring means to them. This month the match is Deanna and Carrie, a pair that has been together over 5 years!

Deanna and Carrie, a 7^th grader, have been meeting as a mentoring pair since Carrie was in 2^nd grade.  Carrie says some of her favorite activities with Deanna have been frosting cookies, coloring eggs, flying a kite and going to the bakery together, but her favorite has been snow tubing at Seven Oaks.   Deanna states that her favorite activity with Carrie was when they helped to pack Thanksgiving boxes at the Salvation Army – she says that doing that with Carrie meant a lot to both of them.   Carrie thinks that Deanna is cool and fun, awesome and always happy!  Deanna says that Carrie is a really genuine person, who is thoughtful, caring, smart and has a unique perspective on life.  “More kids should have mentors because it really brightens your day!” says Carrie.  Deanna says “Mentoring has been very rewarding.  It has been a joy to see Carrie grow over the years and I love being involved in Carrie’s life.”

Literacy: Making Reading Fun

As many of us know, it's hard to get kids, and even adults, to read. This year GRIP has decided to make an extra effort to increase literacy among our mentoring pairs. People have many different ways of getting kids to read, but the easiest way that we have found is to make it fun!

By incorporating reading and writing into pair activities, the mentees get a chance to connect learning and literacy with something fun and worthwhile. Below are listed several activities that involve literacy and fun!

I'm Going on a Trip
Directions:
1. Begin with the phrase. I'm going on a trip and I'm going to pack... Each player decides how to finish the sentence. If the mentee is young, pick a theme or a category.
2. The first player might begin: I'm going on a trip and I'm going to pack a book.
3. The second player repeat the phrase with the first player's item and an item of their own
4. Continue with each player repeating all the previous items and adding something new until someone makes a mistake.
5. Once your done you can draw a suitcase and fill in everything you took!

Creative Brainstorming
1. Show the mentee an everyday item (comb, fork, pencil, etc.)
2. Have the mentee take 5 minutes to brainstorm creative uses for this item. For example: a comb might be a musical instrument, a fork might be a comb or a backscratcher, etc.
Variations
~Both mentor and mentee can come up with ideas independently and then share them with each other. If the mentee is enthusiastic about one idea, create a story about it or encourage them to bring something else they'd like to brainstorm about in the next week.

Cookbooking
Find a recipe online or bring a cookbook to the pair meeting
1. Have the mentee read the recipe to you and draw together a plate or bowl with the necessary ingredients.
2. Plan out meals that you or your mentee like to eat and have them write down recipes, ingredients, etc.
3. If you both like to cook, make a mini cookbook throughout the year and let them have it at the end!

Hopefully these gave you some great ideas about what to do with your mentees, children or students! Obviously there are plenty more ideas where these came from. Design some of your own and feel free to send me your ideas and thoughts in the comment section below.

Welcome

Hello everyone!

Welcome to GRIP Mentoring Program's first blog post! We are excited to be starting this blog, because it gives us a chance to really connect with our communities, our volunteers and also anyone out there who is interested in becoming a mentor or finding out what we do.

We will be posting everything from fun (but educational) activites, events we are hosting, real life stories from mentor/mentee paris and everything in between.

We hope you enjoy and help us spread the word about this very worthy cause and about GRIP as well.