Need ideas for activities?

Question

I have a group of kids that I have to mentor and write evaluations on every week. Well my boss says that I am not being insightful enough and I need to evaluate their strengths and weaknesses more. What kinds of activities can I do to help me evaluate their strengths and weaknesses? I was thinking like a learning styles test but we have to do an activity every day so I need more ideas.

Answer 1

I guess first thing to do is make a list of the strenghts and weakness you want to be monitoring like:

Team building & Independent work.
Imagination & Memorization.

Then you want to brainstorm in ideas to evaluate them in these areas.

Team building - Can the kids work as a group to put the skeletion of a cat together?

Independent work - Can the child write an essay on bones by themselves?

Imagination - Can the child create an advertisement for a strawberry? or Can the child create a creature of their own .

Memorization - Can the child memorize the bones in the body?

Answer 2

Play a game of 'Jeopardy'... all you need is a chalkboard or Erasable Marker Board. That will test their mental capacities....you make up the categories and questions...choose some fun one like cartoons but also stuff like history.

Arts and Crafts.

Basketball Freethrows.

Those 3 things will test a variety of strengths.

Answer 3

I once had a friend who taught third grade and wanted to do something artistic with them, so she invited me to come to class once a week for two hours. Two learning experiences stand out.

One day an optometrist friend of mine loaned me enough lenses for each kid to have what amounted to a magnifying glass. (You could also find inexpensive magnifiers for them to keep.) I took all kinds of everyday items -- some from my house and a lot that I just picked up off the ground -- and we talked about observation, about REALLY looking at things. They could have done that for days. It was amazing how even the shyest of kids came alive when they saw details of everyday items that they had never noticed and their teacher saw how some of the kids were more kinesthetic learners, when she had been puzzled before about why they didn't seem to catch onto things in class.

Another day, I took a stack of magazines and catalogs and had the kids each make their own collage that included things about their families, things they liked, and things they dream of doing some day. The most amazing thing: the teacher looked at the 28 collages and figured out which one belonged to which kid without seeing their names -- except for two!

Answer 4

Have them write journal entries. You can tell a lot by written responses to open-ended questions. They can be personal or based on movies you all may watch or things they you all may read from books, magazines, or newspapers.