Resources

Activities

Reading Lists
Pick a book list by grade level to find an appropriate book to read with your mentee.

Kindergarten        1st Grade        2nd Grade        3rd Grade        4th Grade

5th Grade            6th Grade        7th Grade         8th Grade

Book lists provided by the Long Beach Unified School District and the Long Beach Public Library

Journaling Activities/Ideas

Literacy Activities/Ideas

Math Activities/Ideas

Science Activities/Ideas

Art Activities/Ideas

Health & Nutrition Activities/Ideas

Future Thinking Activities/Ideas

Interpersonal Activities/Ideas

Journaling Activities/Ideas

• Cover your journal and get to know each other! Click here to download a pdf file with step-by-step instructions.
  
• Write a poem
  
• Draw a picture
  
• Work on ABCs or other academics
  
• Make a collage
  
• Write about your favorite things
  
• Draw a picture of your mentor/mentee. Label it with things that make your mentor/mentee special
  
• Pick someone you admire and explain why
  
• Play games like hangman or tic-tac-toe
  
• Work on your spelling
  
• Doodle
  
• Bring pictures of yourself, swap, and paste in your journal
  
• Write a letter

*** See the Journaling Packet in the Mentoring Resources (Chapter 5) of your BLAST Training Manual for more ideas and writing prompts ***

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Literacy Activities/Ideas

• Write a movie review about a movie that you have both seen.
  
• Do you speak two languages? Create a bilingual board game together, or play bilingual scrabble.
  
• Write a story of a memory that you have and then draw a picture to go with it. Share your memories with each other.
  
• Read your favorite books to each other.
  
• Read the newspaper together. Follow a particular story or issue.
  
• Increase your vocabulary by learning a word a day. Use a dictionary to look up a word you do not know. Write the definition in your journal. Have fun quizzing one another with the new words you are learning each day.
  
• Write down lyrics from a favorite song. Read the lyrics and figure out what they mean to you. What's the message of the song? Do you agree or disagree? Does interpreting the lyrics change the way you feel about the song?
  
• Write a joint poem. Each person writes a line. You can try making it rhyme, if you like.
  
• Find a madlibs book and have your mentee fill in the blanks using verbs, nouns, adjectives, etc. Then, read the story together out loud. Take turns.
  
• Bring word searches or crossword puzzles with you to play with your mentee.

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Math Activities/Ideas

• Bring a recipe from home and work with your mentee on how to halve or double a recipe.
  
• Sharpen your probability and math skills through a game of cards. Play card games like "Speed" or to develop speedy addition skills, play"21". Learn about probability through rolling a pair of dice or drawing from a deck of cards. What is the probability of you rolling a six? Rolling a one? What is the probability of picking a Queen from the deck?
  
• Develop your estimation skills. Estimate the length of the room you are in and then measure it. How close was your estimation? Try measuring your body. What do you notice when you measure your food and teh area between your wrist and your elbow? Are the lengths the same or different?
  
• Learn how to balance a checkbook.
  
• Look for shapes in every day things you see (triangles, squares, rectangles, trapezoids, circles, hexagons, pentagons, octagons.)

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Science Activities/Ideas

 

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Art Activities/Ideas

• Pick a painter that you like. Then, create a painting in the style of the painter Experiment with color. Try mixing primary colors (red, yellow, blue) in order to see what secondary colors you can make.
  
• Create a collage describing yourself. Think about things that make you who you are. Consider family, friends, interests, likes, dislikes, where you're from, your community, hopes and dreams. Share your masterpiece with each other.

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Health & Nutrition Activities/Ideas

• Learn how to take your pulse. Take your resting heart rate (count how many beats in a minute). Run for five minutes and then take your heart rate again. How much did your heart rate change?
  
• Take a walk and collect leaves. Figure out what leaves come from which trees, then press flat in a book and display them in your journal. Write about how the leaves are different and similar.
  
• Learn about the five different food groups: fruits, vegetables, grains, dairy, and protein. Discuss what your favorite foods are and then figure out what food group they belong in.

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Future Thinking Activities/Ideas

• Work on a resume together.
  
• Write questions for a job or college interview and then switch off interviewing one another.
  
• Fill out a college application together.

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Interpersonal Activities/Ideas

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