Mentor Team Toolkit

GETTING STARTED

Don’t get overwhelmed! You’ve already made a difference by signing up to be an Adopt A Class mentor. We are here to help you every step of the way.

Teacher Communication

Follow Their Lead: Find out the best way to communicate with your teacher and use that mode of communication.

Be Consistent: Set a routine visit time if possible (i.e. second Thursday of every month). Teachers have many moving parts. The more we can provide consistency and predictability, the better – for teachers AND students!

Fill the Need: Share your overall plan with the teacher at the beginning of the year and ask if s/he has specific areas where you can enhance their classroom curriculum. Meeting the students where they are developmentally and socially is also important. Your teacher is your biggest resource here.

Team Communication:

Time Blocking: Schedule classroom visits as meetings on your calendar and invite your team members. Please consider your AAC liaison as a part of your team! Add us to calendar invites, email communication, etc. We try to make as many visits as possible and love to feature our mentor teams across our social media channels.

Plan Ahead: Have a planning meeting with your team between visits, to discuss your planned lesson, and to delegate responsibilities. Activities will flow better if your team knows the plan.

Classroom Management:

Learn the Rules: Observe how your teacher gets students to quiet down and model the teacher.

Work in Small Groups: Use the icebreaker to explain the lesson or activity for the day. Then, break into groups of 3-4. Small groups are easier to manage, students participate more freely, and you will learn more from them as individuals.

Safety: Your teacher should always be in the classroom while you are mentoring. You should never be alone in the classroom without a teacher or school representative present.

Classroom Activities:

Lesson Plans: Create your own lesson plans based on ideas from your company or download activities from our website at www.aacmentors.org/educational-activities.

Log Visits: Please log each visit at aacmentors.org. Not only does this help us document and quantify our impact, it also helps us when applying for grants so we can reach more classrooms and students. At the end of the school year, this data is used to create Impact Reports that you can use to promote the great work you’ve done in your community!

FIELD TRIPS

Field Trips that demonstrate to students what you do as organization or business are an important part of the AAC experience. They expand the student’s perspective on what a workplace can look like and the types of skills it takes to put it all together.

Field Trips can be scheduled at any point during the October to May timeframe. We encourage you to think about Field Trips early, as it can involve some planning.

1. Field Trip days will be coordinated between the Team Leads and the Classroom Teacher (in order to avoid conflicts with testing days, in-service days, or other school or classroom conflicts).

2. Once the day and times are agreed upon, the next step is to arrange transportation.

A. The process for transportation arrangements varies by district and often by team.

B. Some of our districts provide funding for transportation, Adopt A Class provides transportation for our non-profit and civic partners (if needed), and we ask that our corporate partners provide the funds for their field trips.

C. If you would like Adopt A Class to arrange transportation for your field trip, please submit a request via the form linked on the mentor portal. All requests must be submitted a minimum of 4-6 weeks prior to the field trip date.

D. If your team is one that will be providing payment for transportation and AAC coordinates the bus for you, we will also receive and forward any invoices for payment.

E. Please reach out to your AAC Liaison with any questions or concerns regarding field trip transportation.

3. Depending on the length of your field trip, planning for lunch may become part of your field trip experience. Ordering pizza is quick and easy!

4. ENJOY! Field trip days are enjoyed by both students and mentors. thank you for providing career and life experiences that they may not have had without you!

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MARKETING GUIDE

Adopt A Class encourages your company to share about your involvement externally. See below for all marketing needs, as well as tips and tricks!

Do’s & Dont’s

DO’S

DO: Post and/or Repost from your company’s social media accounts.

DO: Tag Adopt A Class, your school, and the school district in your social posts.

DO: Include the Adopt A Class logo in your social posts.

DON’TS

DON’T: Post from your personal social media account.

DON’T: Post photos of students who aren’t allowed to be photographed.

DON’T: Include students name’s in your post.

Name Tags & AAC Take Home Letter

Adopt A Class has provided a Name Tag template for you to use during your class visits, as well as a Take Home Letter. Name Tags will make it easier to identify students and begin to learn their names. Our Take Home Letters are a way to notify our students guardians that their child is being mentored by YOUR company! We ask you to use our template to co-brand and share about your company. Once completed, give to copies to your teacher so they can disperse to the students.

Suggestion: Print both of these documents out before your first visit. For the Name Tags, you can allow the teacher to write each student’s name. These can either be kept by you, our mentoring team, or for the teacher to disperse before every mentoring session. For the AAC Take Home Letters, please go in and edit with your companies logo and information. Once you have the number of students in your classroom, print accordingly and hand these to your teacher so they can pass them out to the students to bring home.

AAC Name Tag Template

AAC Take Home Letter

Join us on Social Media!

Brand Assets

Below you’ll find various file types of Adopt A Class logo for use.

Questions? Please contact AAC’s Marketing & Communications Manager, Kristen Tierney [email protected].