Summer at ACES!
Summer Program at ACES!
by Jenn Schultz
It’s been an exciting summer for us as we added a new site to our summer programming! In addition to continuing our summer curriculum with Eastside Boys & Girls Club in Saint Paul and Jerry Gamble Boys & Girls Club in Minneapolis, we’ve expanded to add programming at Harold Mezile YMCA in Minneapolis! We’re committed to building on our previous success and growing our reach through the Twin cities Communities. This new partnership allows us to make a bigger impact in Minneapolis and Saint Paul by getting more students involved and engaged in math and social-emotional learning.
Summer program looks a little different than it does during the academic year. Instead of staying with one Academic Coach for the duration of a curriculum day, our students work with three different Academic Coaches, each specializing in a different area of curriculum. An ACES day consists of three rotations: math, social-emotional learning, and a math/social-emotional learning combination. While students are engaged in various activities throughout the day, all classes are focused on the same social-emotional learning skill, so students are continuously using and reflecting on those goal.
Like each school year, our students started the summer with a week-long training camp unit. Just like their favorite athletes, they use training camp to begin building relationships with their teammates, set expectations for the summer, and use their strengths to establish roles within their teams. Each of our ACES teams worked together to create a positive vision for their future and set both personal and team goals they wanted to achieve throughout the eight weeks of program.
Each week of program, students have a unit focused on a different sport. These sports include track, hockey, basketball, baseball, golf and tennis. We just wrapped up our basketball unit which is always a favorite at the Boys & Girls Clubs and started our unit on baseball this week. The unit ends with some of our ACES All Stars getting a private educational tour of CHS Field where the St. Paul Saints play! Not only do the students get to learn more about each of the sports, but they are offered unique opportunities to attend camps, get behind the scenes tours of local sports arenas, and attend professional sporting events with their ACES sites!
It’s hard to believe we finished our summer program last week! We look forward to starting the school year strong and sharing the successes of our ACES faces!