Students of the Summer (2021)

Anthony C, Age 9

Anthony has been working on reading comprehension and multiplication. He would like to be a police officer when he grows up. Anthony has a positive attitude and a willingness to learn!

Maximillian, Age 8

Max is equal parts silly and animated. He makes the sessions light by always cracking hilarious jokes or doing impersonations. His energy and liveliness during sessions would give even the Energizer bunny a run for its money! Max is an avid gamer and would love to explore the field of game testing and development. One of his current favorite games is Minecraft.

Our sessions focus primarily on language arts, specifically phonics and reading comprehension skills. Sometimes we learn new things and Max has a difficult time working through the process of mastering a new skill. He automatically deems new things as hard, difficult, or unnecessary. Yet by the second time he is exposed to the material, he has had a chance to process the steps and is no longer protesting the material. Sometimes it’s difficult for him to see the “end goal” but we try to work through these mental blocks through encouragement and pulling in real-world applications of the material. I greatly appreciate having the support from his parents as well! It’s nice to have a backup on your side when debating with an 8-year old 🙂

Luna, Age 9

Luna is super creative and silly. We’re writing a story based on two characters she came up with: Barney, a grumpy farmer, and Dino, his “legendary blue dinosaur”. She comes up with the funniest storylines and details at the drop of a hat. Luna is a great student and a hard worker. Her main challenge is that she often goes too fast, and ends up making small mistakes or mispronouncing words that she knows. We’ve worked on being more aware of it and taking deep breaths to help us slow down. She’s often able to do it on her own now!

When Luna grows up she says she wants to be an art teacher and to “help dogs in need”, which really speaks to her big heart. I’ve learned a lot from Luna about patience. She never gets angry or frustrated when the work is hard; she’ll push through until she understands the concept. I’m always so impressed with her perseverance.

Amy, Age 12

Amy’s positive attitude and willingness to learn makes her a very fun student to work with! A big challenge for Amy was remembering all of the different rules for adding and subtracting fractions vs. multiplying and dividing them, which can be tricky. However, Amy was able to master this skill through practicing each week.

Amy dreams of becoming a photographer in the future. Working with Amy has taught me a lot about patience and perseverance. Solidifying new concepts in math takes a lot of practice and can be frustrating, but Amy never gives up.

Alex, Age 6

The thing that makes Alex special is his energy and positive attitude. Everytime we have our weekly sessions, he always seems to have a smile on his face and has some fun stories to tell about his weekend. He is always eager to learn and try different subjects or topics each week. Something that Alex has found a little challenging is reading. We have worked on it by always doing some sort of reading or short spelling activity every week along with our math and art activities.

Alex is really enthusiastic about multiple things such as Legos and drawing. He has a really creative mind and has a lot of ideas whenever we have time to do some drawing activities.

Anthony M., Age 17

What makes Anthony so special is how friendly he is. Meeting teens for the first time can be stressful but the first time I met him I instantly felt comfortable talking to him. Anthony is planning on attending college and getting a part-time job in the near future. He is also considering a career as an animator since he loves art. Anthony has been through some hard experiences in life and he still has a positive attitude about his future and life in general. I find that very inspiring!

Freddy, Age 17

Freddy worked diligently over quarantine and was able to end the year with straight A’s while also growing his side business using the budgeting tools he gained through the BUS Program! Certain classes have been challenging because the concepts aren’t explained very clearly, so we’ve worked together to learn how to problem solve and find information on our own! I think these will be extremely helpful skills for him to have in both college and the entrepreneurial world.

Freddy definitely has a great mind for business, and currently he plans to study that area in college. I’ve learned all about his side business of reselling shoes! He’s very knowledgeable and has put so much work into growing the business efficiently, including managing the budgeting, organizing inventory, shipping, and even marketing using social media.

Sergio, Age 11

Sergio wants to become both a professional boxer and the first in his family to get a college degree. I think that boxing has taught him to work hard, and I have seen this translate to his schoolwork. Whenever I go over a challenging concept with him, he does not usually get it the first, second, or even third time. He keeps going and striving to understand the concept. His perseverance often amazes me, and I believe this will take him very far and allow him to reach his dreams.

I first noticed in his writing that there were many run-on sentences and a lack of punctuation and capitalization. Through the many writing assignments he had, we worked on using periods and commas as well as capitalizing the word “I” and the first letter of every sentence. There have also been weeks when we met more than once to work on his writing. By helping him practice as often as possible and letting him know about his improvements, he has become a better writer. Sometimes, he is able to tap into his creative side and let his thoughts out without my help.