Student Leadership and Mentoring at Its Best!

As you wrap up your final days/weeks of school, an easy activity to try is one that will build bridges with possible students you have next year.

This week, I had all three 3rd grade classes set up a time to visit my classroom for my students to share their perspectives about the life of a 4th grader.  The beautiful thing about this activity is my current students were the leaders and communicators of sharing their experiences from this year, not me :)  I divided my students into 5 groups and gave them a topic of discussion to mentor the 3rd graders in, topics such as our technology projects, math and science units, classroom culture, and so much more.  My 4th graders talked as a group to develop their collective ideas and how they wanted to share their ideas.  To help my students feel more at ease, we divided the 3rd graders into small groups and had them rotate through the different 4th grade student groups.  These rising 4th graders learned valuable information to help them be successful next year, and my students learned very beneficial communication and leadership skills.  Even if I do not have some of the students we mentored this week, we still helped each student begin contemplating and anticipating great things for next year.

Give this activity a try!  You'll be so proud of your mentoring students, and your heart will smile as you see them express an enthusiasm and excitement for what they experienced this year.

Here are some pictures and videos from this special time!