Tutoring

We’ve been busy at ImpACT Tutoring over the last few months! We kicked off the month of March with our academic focus on grammar, specifically nouns, in order to reinforce what students are learning at school. Although we tutors love spending one-on-one time with each student, we decided to change our schedule around for two months to provide time for mini-lessons in a group setting, which at times included some fun games and activites before going into individual tutoring.
But the fun didn’t end there! The students gathered at the UC Berkeley campus for a tour led by the tutors themselves, who are current undergraduates at Cal. We posed for pictures under the T-Rex fossil, heard each other from opposite sides of the famous whispering bench, and took in the breathtaking sight of the Bay Area from the Campanile, Berkeley’s clock tower. Students learned historical facts about the university, as well as interesting stories about various buildings and landmarks on campus. The tutors had as much fun as the kids did! We ended the day with a yummy picnic lunch where students asked the tutors about college, and played freeze tag on the grassy hills of Memorial Glade.

In the middle of March, after completing the grammar curriculum, we switched gears in the classrooms to prepare the students for STAR testing at school. Each tutee had a chance to study test-taking as a genre and review test-taking strategies with their tutors.

For April’s outing, students and tutors went mini-golfing! The day was full of fun, despite some challenging obstacles on the different golf courses. One first-time mini-golfer, Sherry, hit a hole in one at the end! Early in May, we went to Fenton’s Creamery in Oakland – the same one featured in Pixar’s movie Up! It was a sweet time of sharing fries, banana splits, and ice cream.

It’s been amazing to watch the transformation of the tutor and tutee relationships since from September to now. We’ve all grown much closer and developed strong friendships with one another, and that’s one of the things that make ImpACT so special. The students have come to trust their tutors in a way that really helps foster an environment for learning and having fun together. These days, the girls step off the bus and give their tutors a big hug, and the boys will run up to their own tutors, excitedly chit-chatting about what happened during the past week. As the school year wraps up, we hope to carry on our relationships with more ImpACT tutoring.