Final Mentor Hours

A few weeks ago, I went back to volunteering to communicate more with my mentor. The first week added up to a total of 30 hours, and then the following two weeks made a total of 36 hours.

On Tuesday during my last week, I worked on the presentation that I was going to show the kids. I created a powerpoint that showed pictures of each of them doing their presentations on "Culture Week," along with another volunteer. We also went there the following day to continue working on it, which added up another hour (but not included in the 36 mentor hours). We then presented it the following day. Aside from showing them pictures, we showed them a presentation on our own cultures. I thought I should share them what my culture is like since they were talking about their cultures, and none of them came from the same country that I did. It was a fun experience because the kids were actually engaging with it, asking questions and making comments. But other than the presentation, I just helped the kids with their homework, like I normally do.

At this moment, I'm done with volunteering. The whole experience actually taught me a lot, and it was fun.

Back to Volunteering

I've done 25 hours of volunteering at CLC, but I did not have enough communication with my mentor in all those hours, so I came back to volunteering. I will be there for three more weeks, including this week. My main goal there was to observe the children's behavior and to connect it with my topic.
 
On Tuesday, before helping the kids with their homework, I spoke to my mentor about how I was going to present my topic. She gave me ideas, which helped me a lot on figuring out what I am going to be doing for my presentation. In addition, she recommended me to do a simple presentation for the kids. I talked more with my mentor about this on Thursday. About a month ago, the kids did a presentation about their culture. Unfortunately, I was not there to see them present. It would have been an excellent time for me to observe them, since my topic is on social anxiety. But I got to see pictures of them, because my mentor took pictures of each of them as they were presenting, and this is actually what I am going to present to them. I will be showing the kids pictures of them presenting, so they get to see themselves presenting.
 
Aside from communicating with my mentor, I helped the kids with their homework, as usual. I usually go around the classroom and help different students. But this week, I helped a couple of them a lot more than others on both days. The two would usually ask me to help them with their reading homework. Sometimes they tend to ask me every question that the reading comprehension asks and rely on me, so I challenged them to try doing as many questions as they can on their own, and only ask me when they really struggle, which seems to have worked. Eventually they asked me less questions than they would normally do. As for the other students, I helped them with some of their homework too. I did more Math than English this week.

Mentor: Days 12 and 13

I have finally completed my mentor hours. I did 26 hours in total. As usual, I did 4 hours last week. This week was a little bit different than usual, because it was parent teacher conference week. The children had a different schedule all week and did homework first, so during the two days that I went there, I did not have to help them with any homework. What I did instead on Tuesday was play games with them. On Thursday, they were already preparing to bake cookies when I got there, so that's all we did.

This sums up my experience at CLC. Now that I've completed my mentor hours, I'm thinking about whether I'm going to stay there or not, because I like volunteering there.

Mentor: Days 10 and 11

As usual, I did 4 mentor hours this week. I just completed 22 mentor hours, and I should be done by the end of next week. This week was not any different from normal weeks, I helped the children with their homework and socialized with them afterwards. Now that I'm used to the way things work there, I am also getting more familiar with the way the children behave. I can somewhat see who might be more lively or more quiet than others.

Mentor: Days 6 - 9

I am now more than halfway done with my mentor hours. I've done 18 hours: 4 hours last week and 4 hours this week. I have not missed a single day of volunteering. These past two weeks had been pretty much the same, since the routine is the same every time I go there. Today, however, I did not have to help the children with homework because they did not have any, since they do not have school tomorrow. What they did today during their usual "homework time" was prepare for their upcoming multiplication table test, which looked fun for them.

Mentor: Day 4 and 5

I went to CLC on Tuesday and Thursday last week, as usual. I did a total of 4 hours, so that adds up to 10 mentor hours. It has been pretty much the same on Tuesday. I helped the children with their homework and get to know them little by little. I find working with these children really fun. They can be a little too goofy sometimes, but they are nice kids. Thursday was a little bit different, since it was Valentine's Day. When I got there, they were already preparing to watch a movie. I don't think they did any homework that day. All they did after watching the movie was exchange presents.

Mentor Blog - Day 3

Today was my third day at Community Learning Center. I'm starting to get used to it, and I'm getting to know the children more. I sometimes play with them during "playground" time, but I missed it today because they did that first, in case it rained later. The only thing that I ended up doing was help them with their homework and got to know some of them a little bit. Today adds up to a total of 6 mentor hours so far, since I did 2 hours, like always.

Mentor/Volunteer

Yesterday was my second day for volunteering at Community Learning Center. I spent 2 hours, which would be a total of 4 mentor hours so far. My next volunteer day will be on Thursday. I go there on Tuesdays and Thursdays for at least 2 hours.

First Mentor Hours

When I found a mentor at Community Learning Center, the only thing left that they needed were my fingerprints. They told me that I could start my volunteer hours as soon as they got them. My first day was the Thursday that just passed. I did not have to do much since I was new. All I did was observe, got to know some of the children that I was going to tutor, and tried to see what it was going to be like. I've spent 2 mentor hours so far.

Mentor

A few weeks ago, my counselor referred me to a place called Community Learning Center to search for a mentor. I considered it and went there a week ago. I told them about the Capstone Project and that I needed a mentor, and in order to get one, they had me volunteer there. I believe that I would be working with children, and since my topic is Psychology, I am going to focus on the children's behavior. There will be an orientation for all the volunteers today after school, and I will be there. I hope to get a mentor today.

Fiscal Cliff Response

Republicans believe that deductions should be limited, instead of raising rates. Democrats thought the opposite, that upper-income earners should have higher rates. President Barrack Obama, thinks that tax increases on the middle class may cause recession, but despite that, Democrats campaigned on raising taxes. The Republicans were forced to accept it and were obviously not happy about it.

I used Google for this research. Since this is a short prompt, I did not use that many search tools. I used terms such as "fiscal cliff", "republican views on fiscal cliff", and "democrats views on fiscal cliff." I inserted quotation marks on certain words like "democrats" and "republicans" to narrow my search and to get one-sided results. In my opinion, this is one of the most helpful search tools.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-11-25/republicans-democrats-disagree-on-taxes-as-fiscal-cliff-looms.html