Mentoring Activities and Ideas
Y Mentors provides monthly activities that all of our mentors and mentees are welcome to participate in. Some of the events we put on include an annual pool tournament, an annual bowling tournament, a summer picnic, craft nights, sports events, and volunteering activities.
In addition to the provided activities, mentors are welcome to use the Rochester Area Family YMCA any time when they are with their mentee.
We also get a number of tickets and vouchers donated from area business. Mentors are welcome to utilize these tickets and coupons with their mentees as well.
We encourage our mentors and mentees to participate in low cost or no cost activities.
Fresh Ideas:
-Courtesy of Kinship of Greater Minneapolis
Outdoor Fun:
• Plant a garden together
• Learn about constellations & star gaze
• Capture bugs for a bug collection
• Plan a nature walk
• Create a map or go on a scavenger hunt
• Play Frisbee golf
Know Your Community:
• Tour a local business (a candy shop, fire station, newspaper office, radio station)
• Attend a school music concert or play
• Visit residents at a nearby nursing home
• Take pictures around town to make a scrapbook
• Plan a trip using public transportation
• Tour a college or university
• Find a restaurant where kids eat free
In The Kitchen:
• Make popsicles
• Cook a meal together
• Find a recipe for playdough
• Make personal pizzas
• Bake a dessert for someone
• Make salt water taffy
• For recipe ideas visit: www.amazingmoms.com/htm/kidscooking.htm
Create A Craft:
• Learn to make wearable crafts
• http://crafts.kaboose.com/wear/index.html
• Educate as you create
• Put together a no-sew, fleece blanket.
• Make a wallet out of duct tape
• www.wikihow.com/make-a-duct-tape-wallet
• Decorate a jar and fill it with memories, and over time you can reminisce as you read from your memory jar.
• Put on a puppet show with sock puppets
Stayin' Indoors:
• Check out movies from the library
• Find an obscure holiday ( www.hallmark.com ) & do something to celebrate
• Have an ice cream party
• Request a song on your favorite radio station & talk about the song's lyrics
• Look through family phot albums
• Read together
• www.minesotahumanities.org/literacy/library.htm
• Work on a book of crossword puzzles
• Learn something new!
Random Acts of Kindness:
• Pick up litter at a nearby park
• Make a craft for the child's parent/guardian
• Compliment a stranger
• Volunteer together
• http://www.doinggoodtogether.org/
• Return shopping carts to a store
• Pick wildflowers for a neighbor
• Donate clothes & household items
• Write a note to a child in need at
• www.makeachildsmile.org
• Rake someone's leaves or shovel their sidewalk
Additional Ideas From Y Mentors:
Bowling
Bake cookies
Organize a lemonade stand
Go fishing
Talk about pets
Visit one of the local pet shelters
Play on your computer
Make crafts
Go roller-blading
Go ice-skating
Play raquetball
Tour the Mayo Clinic
Make a snow angel
Collect bugs
Collect leaves
Look for wild flowers
Go snowshoeing at Quarry Hill
Feed the geese at Silver Lake
Go sledding
Make a scrapbook
Make a pinata
Fly a kite
Walk your dog
Visit Oxbow Zoo
Hunt mushrooms
Carve a pumpkin
Play frisbee
Go swimming
Go
to a movie
Make a meal together
Help with homework
Go for a bike ride
Wash the car
Gardening
Rent a video and make popcorn
Go to the library
Shoot some hoops
Play raquetball at the Y
Take a Community Ed class together
Attend local multi-cultural events
Play catch
Hit some golf balls
Play a video game
Make a card with rubber stamps
Make ice cream sundaes
Start a rock collection
Visit an apple orchard
Go to a local play
Make ice cream sundaes
Start a rock collection
Visit an apple orchard
Go to a local play
Read a book together
Tour Assissi Heights
Make a snowman
Put a puzzle together
Play a board game
Play catch
Go to a high school sporting event
Build a bird house/feeder
Play a video game
Make a card with rubber stamps
Mentoring Activities for the Older Mentee
Set your mentoring goals together
Tackle some homework
Make dinner together
Go for a walk together
Make popcorn and talk
Go to a movie
Go
to a concert
Shoot some hoops
Go to the library together
Just hang out
Figure out how to program your VCR
Learn about pop music
Talk about life
Give a tour of your current job
Talk about your very first job
Talk about planning a career
Plan a career
Get together with friends from work
Take tours of friends' jobs
Visit a local technical college
Talk about college
Visit a community college
Sit in on some evening classes
Have your friends talk about college
Work on applications together
Explore financial options
Work on a resume
Talk about dressing for success
Do a pretend job interview
Talk about how to look for a job
Talk about where to find a job
Find a summer job
Set up a work internship
Talk about what it takes to get ahead
Talk about health insurance
Talk about taxes
Talk about balancing work and life
Talk about balancing a checkbook
Talk about balancing a budget
Talk about living within one's means
Talk about credit cards
Go bargain hunting
Plan a weeks worth of meals
Do a weeks grocery shopping together
Go holiday shopping
Write “thank you” notes
Talk about different religions
Celebrate a friend's religious holiday
Talk about relationships
Talk about personal values
Talk about the future