52 Mentor Activities: An activity for each week!

Feel free to change the activities to fit your mentee’s interest, or come up new activities!
* Corresponding page numbers refer to the Creative Mentoring activity guide
1) “Mentees are teachers!”  Let your mentee plan to teach you something they are knowledgeable
about, and let them teach it.
2) “Go on a trip!”  Not really of course, but choose a place you have always wanted to visit (Fiji,
Greece, Disney World) find pictures and fun facts in magazines, books and online.  When is the
best time to go?  What do you want see while you are there?  Then make your own scrapbook
or travelers guide.  A great way to explore and learn geography!
3) Play the “Who, what, when, where, why, how” game.   Rip 6 pieces of paper and on each write
“who”, “what”, “when”, “where”, “why” and “how”.  Read a story, and take turns drawing one
of the pieces of paper and answering a made up “who”, “what”, “when”, “where”, “why” or
“how” about the story.
4) “Learn a language!”  Learn Sign language, Spanish, Latin or Pig Latin!  Teach each other a new
word or phrase at each session.  Write them down to keep track and see how many you can
remember.
5) “Show and Tell!”  You and your mentee can both bring in photos or items that important to you.
6) Set a goal
7) “Act it out!”  Go to the library find a play, and read it out loud.
8) Make your own board game.
9) You can each make a list of 25 things you want to do or accomplish during your lifetime and
share it with one another.
10) “Write a letter!”  Talk to your school’s mentor coordinator about finding a pen pal for you and
your mentee at their school (the principal or guidance counselor), abroad or with armed service
member.
a. For younger students you can work on your letter together letting them dictate to you
or maybe help to write.
11) “Serve!”  Come up with a service project you can do at your mentee’s school.  Plant flowers or
plan to read to a lower grade.
12) “Rubber Egg?!”  Do the rubber egg experiment or another egg experiment.  Plan it out, come up
with a hypothesis and make sure to get permission from your mentor coordinator.
(http://www.eggs.ab.ca/kids/Egg%20Science/splash.htm)
13) “Check mate!” Teach each other how to play chess or checkers, get a book from the library to
figure out how.
14) “Extra, extra!” Pretend you are a news paper reporter and schedule to interview someone
interesting in your school.   Prepare a list of questions with your mentee and see if you can set‐
up an interview with a teacher, the school nurse, the PE teacher or the principal.
15) Make a bird feeder.   Do your research on what types of birds are in your area.  Find out about
each bird's preferred habitat and diet.  With the right food, you may be able to attract some
birds that you don't normally see otherwise.
16) “Story Swap!”  Starts writing a story with your mentee, then each take turns taking the story
home and adding new fun twist and turns to the story.
17) “What is onomatopoeia?  Find out!”  Each of you seek out new and interesting English words
and share them at your next session.  Make your own book of definitions.
52 Mentor Activities: An activity for each week!
Feel free to change the activities to fit your mentee’s interest, or come up new activities!
* Corresponding page numbers refer to the Creative Mentoring activity guide
18) “What’s your plan?”  Make a timeline of your life over the next 5‐10 years.  What do you want
to accomplish by the time you are 10, 16, 18 and 25?
19) “Make a collage!” Choose a theme like: “What do I want in my future?”, “What is fashion“,
“What I want to be”, and find pictures and words in old magazines and glue them on paper.
a. For younger students you can collage a specific letter and cut pictures out that begin
with that letter, or make a number chart finding and cutting out pictures of: 1‐ dog, 2‐
letter “w”, 3‐ shoes, etc.
20) “Play!”  Learn how to play a new sport.  Look up the rules, find clips, etc of how to play cricket,
hacky sack, or water polo.
21) Make a kite
22) Play Frisbee
23) Make a scrapbook or photo album
24) “Knit or Crochet!”  Find books in the library or clips online on how to do it, and learn how
together!
25) Paper Airplanes!  Find a book or website about how to make different kinds of paper airplanes,
and have a contest to see whose goes the farthest!
26) Discuss a current event
27) “Take a tour!”  Let your mentee give you a tour of their school.
28) “Help wanted!”  Fill out mock applications for jobs or help your mentee create their résumé.
(http://sbandcompany.com/images/practice‐employmentapp.pdf or
http://jobsearch.about.com/od/jobappsamples/a/sampleapp.htm) If the mentor has a résumé
you may want to bring it, and share it with your mentee (Be sure to remove any personal
information).
29) “Solve it!”  You and your mentee both take time making up your own math worksheets, then
swap sheets, set the timer and see how many each of you can get done.  This is most beneficial
as a skill/self‐esteem building activity if the mentor makes sure the math problems they create
are on their mentee’s math level.  Your mentee will get a kick out of making your problems as
difficult as they can! 
30) Organize!  Assist your mentee in organizing school work and developing study schedules.
31) Take your mentee’s spelling words and cut the letters to spell each word out of news papers,
magazines, and pictures (when applicable), etc. and make spelling word flashcards.
32) Play tic‐tac‐toe or the dot game
33) Go bird watching‐ or virtual bird watching.
34) Learn how to make Origami
35) Every day is a holiday!  Make a card or draw a picture for any upcoming holiday like Arbor Day,
or Talk like a Pirate Day
36) Write a haiku
37) Write a rap or a different style of song, especially as a method to help them remember key facts
for a test or spelling words.
38) Play 20 questions
39) Put together a puzzle or make your own.
52 Mentor Activities: An activity for each week!
Feel free to change the activities to fit your mentee’s interest, or come up new activities!
* Corresponding page numbers refer to the Creative Mentoring activity guide
40) Learn to play a new card game like “I declare war”, “Go Fish”, Hearts, Gin Rummy, Memory, Old
Maid
41) Play hangman
42) Create a flip book
43) Learn to play chess
44) Play Sudoku
45) Practice positive imagery and relaxation techniques with your mentee.  Find an area you would
like to work on or improve and use positive imagery to start to make it happen!
46) Do a crossword puzzle or word search, or make your own!
47) Take turns reading a page, paragraph or sentence from funny story aloud.
48) Walk on the playground and find as many leaves as possible and then try to find which trees
your leaves came from.
49) Teach your mentee a clapping game.
50) Make your family trees.
51) Play charades.
52) “It’s a mystery!”  Write down a list of 10 things you’ve always wanted to know.  “Why is it dark
at night?”  “How does a car work?”  “How does an airplane fly?”  Go to the library or go to the
internet and figure out the answers!

Other ideas:

• Color or draw a picture
• Make your own cereal dispenser (http://pbskids.org/zoom/activities/sci/cerealdispenser.html)
• Make your own water filter! (http://pbskids.org/zoom/activities/sci/waterfilter.html)
• For the holidays.  Because your mentee is younger they might not have a lot of their own money, help them make a list of what would really help the people on their list, and what they can do help.  (Examples: Read a sibling a story, help around the house, help outside the house, write a story, make a card, etc.)

For more activity ideas please check‐out www.creativemenetoring.org