A Look Into Architecture

March 3rd
Today was my first day volunteering with the ACES program at Green Central. I was nervous that I might be out of place due to my lack of experience in tutoring. The other volunteers and Becca helped me feel comfortable. Today I worked with Becca and the fourth graders. The fourth graders were definitely a group that needed the extra help to keep order. Today I helped a couple of the kids with any math questions they had. After the kids finished up math homework, I helped them work on a writing assignment. When it came time for choice time, I took a group of kids down to the gym. I played soccer with a group of kids in the gym. All in all my first day went very good. I got the hang of helping out the kids in a productive manner towards the middle of the first day.

March 17th
Today was all in all a lot easier than my first day because I had a better idea of what to expect. I also had a much better idea of what to do in order to best help the kids with homework. I worked with Becca and the fourth graders again today. Today did not go as easy as last week as far as helping kids do homework is concerned. I actually was in charge of convincing one of the kids to do his homework. This proved to be a bit of a challenge. This was a whole new experience for me. It was hard to persuade him to do his homework and it required some help from Becca. After homework time was over, the kids sat in a group and talked about global warming. After the group discussion, I took a group of kids down to the gym again. I played basketball with a group of kids for a little while, and then I switched to playing soccer with a different group of kids. All in all today was a new experience that resulted in a productive day.

April 21st
Today was my first day back to volunteering after almost a month off the Aces program at Green Central. I worked with Becca and the fourth graders today. Today the fourth graders worked on homework in the cafeteria for the first half of the day. I helped a couple kids work on math homework. After homework time the kids went upstairs to see a live owl. This was very interesting and the kids were very good during this time period. They had many questions for the trainer and were very productive. After getting to see the owl, I took a group of kids outside to play soccer. I spent the rest of the day playing soccer with a group of kids. All in all today was a very productive day even though it had been my first time back in awhile.

April 28th
Today I worked with Becca and the fourth graders again. Today we worked in the cafeteria again. We spent the day learning more about owls. I helped the kids out wherever possible. The kids watched a movie on owls and the Raptor Center in St. Paul. After the movie the kids were given a set of questions to answer. I helped out the kids who needed help answering questions. I hinted towards the right answer in order to not just give them the answer. It appeared to be pretty helpful to the kids. After the kids answered the questions on the movie, they all got pictures of owls to color. Once the kids were finished with this it was time for choice time. I took a group of kids to the gym again. I played soccer with a group of kids. I was even the goalie for awhile so they could kick the ball towards someone new. It was a lot of fun playing soccer with the kids.

Summary of Volunteering
Working with the ACES program was a very good experience. I learned a lot about productive tutoring of younger kids. The ACES program is a good mixture of learning experience and fun. It was always a blast playing soccer with the kids in the program. It was very nice to work with the same set of kids each time I volunteered as well. This helped me connect to the kids I was tutoring. I think they began to trust that I could answer most of their questions. The only thing that was difficult about volunteering for ACES was figuring out a time that I could volunteer. The only day that worked for me was Mondays at Green Central. Unfortunately in the spring semester, Green Central had like 3 weeks off in a row on Mondays. As a result I was only able to volunteer four times. I think that over the course of those four times I learned a lot of helpful tricks though. So all in all I’d say the ACES program was a very fun and experience filled event.