Adventures Ahead After School Tutoring

Adventures Ahead is back in session, and already in our third week! We are so grateful to have twenty three Reading Buddies to work one-on-one with students, and now, almost all of our students are receiving individualized reading tutoring 4 days a week! Are you interested in enrolling your student in Adventures Ahead? We will have space soon for a few more students, but are limiting enrollment to K-5 students living in the community. If you have any questions or are ready to enroll, please reach out to [email protected]

Thank you to everyone who joined last week's community workshops! We loved hearing your creative ideas for the potential pocket park. Next week, The Los Angeles Neighborhood Land Trust will be hosting two more workshops to present initial drafts based on the community's ideas for even more feedback - come join us and share your thoughts! WHEN **Wednesday 2/10 from 6-7pm **Saturday 2/13 from 11-12pm... ZOOM Meeting ID: 819 1868 9877 Passcode: 336878 To join by phone: 1 669 900 6833 RSVP Contact Ashley Hart, LANLT at [email protected] or (323) 365-3224 See more

Come and join another community workshop happening THIS WEDNESDAY from 12-1pm! We'd love to hear your ideas! If you're unable to join, there's still an opportunity to share your ideas through this survey! https://docs.google.com//1FAIpQLSfVY5-90BjUoyez19/viewform

TONIGHT AT 8PM!! Come and join the Los Angeles Neighborhood Land Trust workshop to share ideas about a possible new park at 1371 W Jefferson Blvd! More information in the post below - we would love to see you there!

Adventures Ahead is starting the new semester on January 25 - we're excited to see our students again! If you are interested in volunteering as a reading buddy, please contact our director Lauren at [email protected].

A big thank you to USC Good Neighbors, who will be partnering with us once more for the upcoming school year! With all of the new changes and transition into distance learning, we are grateful for their continued support. Here's to the new school year!

It's our last week of the summer program! We're working on wrapping up our learning times, setting goals for next month, and finding ways to celebrate our last few days together. Last week we made balloon powered race cars and bubble wands, and learned new techniques for creating watercolor paintings. We continued our weekly bible study on compassion with the story of Ruth and Naomi. We're learning to be more open to seeing and feeling the pain of others and letting that guide our actions towards easing the pain. And of course, we keep pressing on towards building our skills in reading and math with our morning classroom times and our afternoon one-on-one buddy times. Redeemer Community Partnership

This week for Adventures Ahead, we received a special visit from Ms. Jessica, our favorite children's librarian! She enrolled the kids into the Los Angeles Public Library Summer Reading Challenge and led us through a digital storytime session! The kids all received goodie bags with a reading tracker, information about the library's summer programs, and a pack of playing cards, encouraging students to "Get in the Game!" Thank you Ms. Jessica! Redeemer Community Partnership

We're already halfway through our summer program! Attendance has been great - all of our parents and students have shown a high level of commitment. Students are continuing to work through lessons on word building strategies, vocabulary development, and writing skills. And during our enrichment time, we built towers using straws and playdough, created chain reactions using dominoes, ping pong balls, and paper ramps, and even made some DIY scratch art paper! Redeemer Community Church

Devastating headlines gave voice to our deepest dread. On June 5 the New York Times reported, Research Shows Students Falling Months Behind During Virus Disruptions. The article went on to report that, When all of the impacts are taken into account, the average student could fall seven months behind academically, while black and Hispanic students could experience even greater learning losses, equivalent to 10 months for Black children and nine months for Latinos. Eight week...s into online instruction we tested our students to take stock of the toll. Imagine our joy and relief when we found that instead of falling behind, our students had continued to make progress. Last week, the program ended with our students making 1.4 years of literacy progress over the course of the year. While this is just short of our 1.5 year goal, under the circumstances we were delighted! Read the NYT article: https://is.gd/gMrlVG

Week one of Adventures Ahead's summer program is off to a great start! Our interns are leading small groups through word building activities to build literacy skills. During enrichment time, we decorated journals, engineered bridges out of popsicle sticks and clothespins, and made clay sculptures! And after lunch, our students return for one-on-one math and reading sessions with our volunteers.

YOU CAN STEP IN TO CLOSE THE ACHIEVEMENT GAP What students do during the summer months is extremely critical to their academic success. Research has found that it is during these months between school years that much of the achievement gap between high income and low-income kids occurs. Adventures Ahead aims to close the achievement gap by stepping in where kids need it the most. By offering an all-day summer program, kids like Jose can continue to make up ground in their rea...ding and math, while also engaging in science, art, sports, field trips, and other enriching experiences. Out of all 52 weeks of the year, these 5 weeks in July may be the most important to our students’ success. Would you consider sponsoring a child this summer? $500 will cover the cost of the program for one student. Any amount you give, taken together with the gifts of others, will help ensure that the Adventures Ahead students continue to realize their potential. Visit www.redeemercp.org/give to make a gift.

Our summer program will be starting soon, and we are getting material kits ready for at-home learning! We also had our first intern orientation and training with students from Cal Poly, Harvey Mudd, Texas A&M, University of Houston, UCLA, Arizona State, and USC! Big thank you to those who are offering their time and resources to supporting our students' experiences this summer. Redeemer Community Partnership

Do you have know a student who would like to enroll in Adventures Ahead's Summer Program? What students do during the summer months is extremely critical to their academic success. Research has found that it is during these months between school years that much of the achievement gap between high income and low-income kids occurs. Adventures Ahead aims to close the achievement gap by stepping in where kids need it the most This year, the program will be run online for 5 week...s, starting June 30th to July 30th. Students will start their day in Word Building Breakout Rooms, where they'll receive specific instruction in phonics and vocabulary in a small group setting and based on their level. We'll come back together as a large group for a different hands on enrichment activity each day like Science, Engineering, Art, and VBS. We'll deliver weekly kits to students with all the materials they will need for their reading and enrichment classes for the week, as well as basic school supplies and a daily snack. Students will return for a 30 min afternoon session of one-on-one Reading & Math Buddies. If you have any questions, please contact us at [email protected]! Redeemer Community Partnership

Adventures Ahead Summer Program is coming up soon, and we are still in need of a few volunteers to support our students! And we need AS MANY Reading and Math Buddies as we can get! Since we've had to switch to a virutal tutoring space, we have been so amazed at how the increased 1-on-1 time has boosted student's progress. Now more than ever, 1-on-1 reading and math support could make a lasting difference to close the achievement gap. While research is saying that students ma...y lose 7-10 months of academic gains in this time, our students improved in their reading by an average of 1.4 years, and all of the students showed growth during the 3 months of school closures - thanks to our teachers for providing one on one support, we hope this trend will continue well into the summer! We need buddies for at least 1 hour a day, 2 days a week (M/W or T/Th) anytime between the hours of 1-4 PM. If you are interested in volunteering and helping our students close the achievement gap, please email Lauren at [email protected]! Redeemer Community Partnership

Adventures Ahead's Summer Program is just around the corner! Here's what a typical day would look like for your student: The program will run on Mondays through Thursdays from 9:30AM-11:30AM on Zoom. Students will start their day in Word Building Breakout Rooms, where they'll receive specific instruction in phonics and vocabulary in a small group setting and based on their level. We'll come back together as a large group for a different hands on enrichment activity each day ...like Science, Engineering, Art, and VBS. We'll deliver weekly kits to students with all the materials they will need for their reading and enrichment classes for the week, as well as basic school supplies and a daily snack. Students will return for a 30 min afternoon session of one-on-one Reading & Math Buddies. An application will be coming soon, and if you have any questions in the meantime, please contact us at [email protected]! Redeemer Community Partnership