Be You
Youth Workshop
Imagine what the future would hold if we prepared our youth with the essential skills for life? Skills development - preparing youth for whatever life throws at them.
Our Be You Youth Workshop is a full-day workshop developed for youth! Our experiential learning workshop is 5-hours of developing life skills, learning about being authentic, and having fun! The workshop has beneficial objectives and workshop modules that are engaging and age-appropriate. We all have different learning styles, but we all learn from our experiences. Experiential learning is the oldest form of learning - learning by doing. Working with horses is both interactive and stimulating - a recipe for important learning retention. Due to the nature of our workshop, participants must be 8+ years of age.
What to Expect: Horses, Learning, & Self-Reflection
Gully's Learning Ranch is proud to offer a youth workshop that promotes life skills development through the power of horses. Our workshop is designed to focus on skills such as, building healthy relationships, communication, self-confidence, and more. Our horse teachers are completely honest, upfront, authentic, and extremely forgiving. For survival, horses simply react to what is going on around them in their surroundings - and that includes what WE bring to their environment. Horses can feel the difference between an aggressive approach and calm approach. Horses have a similar emotional language to our own and when they sense our emotional energy, it allows us to self-reflect on why our horse is reacting to us. What are we bringing to their environment that has them reacting? What do we need to change or what skill do we need to develop in order to make our horse feel safe? NO riding and NO horse experience necessary. For more information on what Equine Assisted Learning is and why we work with horses for life skills development, click to learn more. Workshop modules that relate to our objectives allow for participants to see how the skills we are developing can be applied to every day life - at home, at school, and into their bright futures!
Who Would Benefit?
Equine Assisted Learning is a powerful educational tool that helps to develop both empathy and kindness. This unique teaching method cannot be taught in the classroom - it is the close-contact interaction with horses that has the strongest impact on young people. Our workshop is designed for youth who may be struggling with low self-confidence, emotional and behavioural difficulties, poor communication skills, anxiety and/or depression, loneliness, grief, making friends and building fulfilling relationships, bullying, or for those just looking for a fun day of learning, laughing, and being you – with horses!
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What is Included?
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1. Our small class sizes means participants get optimal learning from their horse teachers.
2. Two (2) objectively-driven Equine Assisted Learning arena sessions. Our workshop objectives are "Building Healthy Relationships" and "Communication".
3. Workshop modules that include activities that relate to our objectives, including a Friendship Flower creative activity and an activity that will help us learn more about our communication style.
4. Personal take-home workshop “tool kit” goodies, which includes activities to be completed during the workshop, as well as handouts to continue learning at home.
5. Unique bookmarks with a picture of each of their horse teachers and their own stories.
6. Country lunch and refreshments (drinks and snacks) throughout the workshop. Restroom facilities are on site.
7. A unique learning experience that allows participants to learn more about themselves and what it means to "be you".
Take a Deeper Look!
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Throughout the course of the workshop, we work through different modules - some modules are done as classroom work, while others are done engaging and working with our amazing horse teachers. Take a deeper look into what our workshop truly has to offer!
Workshop "Took Kit" Goodies​
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Each participant receives a Workshop "Tool Kit" folder that includes activities to be worked on throughout the workshop, as well as take-home goodies to continue the learning and to be a reference for youth to look back on to remember what their horse teachers taught them. Our unique, custom Be You folder includes:
1. Friendship Flower Creative Activity: Our first workshop module includes a creative activity in which participants create a "Friendship Flower" with attributes of healthy relationships.
2. Communication Activity: Our second workshop module includes learning about our communication style and why having effective communication is important!
3. Journals & Self-Reflections: Reflecting on how we are feeling and what we have learned is an essential part of learning, especially when we are learning about ourselves.
4. Worksheets & Handouts: Each participant receives worksheets and other handouts that are a great way to continue the learning after the workshop. Each participant also receives a Certificate Of
Achievement at the end of the workshop!
5. Bookmarks & Other Goodies: Unique bookmarks of each horse teacher with their picture and stories, a Gully's Learning Ranch pen, and more!
Starting The Journey - Objective: "Building Healthy Relationships"
Equine Assisted Learning Arena Exercise #1
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Our first Equine Assisted Learning arena exercise is Starting The Journey, where we work as a team with our horse teacher, to complete an obstacle course with the objective of "Building Healthy Relationships". The desired outcome of this exercise is:
1. Building a Relationship Within: How important is building a relationship with ourselves? Horses can help us find answers to life's questions. By building a relationship with ourselves, we can connect and create relationships with others in an authentic way.
2. Building a Relationship with Our Horse Teacher: Learning how a horse communicates with us through body language, and also how to work safely with our horse teacher, are important in getting the most beneficial experience possible. Horses have a similar emotional language to our own. Building a relationship with a horse is a fantastic parallel to building a friendship with a human being.
3. Building a Relationship with Each Other: Participants will meet new people while working with their horse teacher. We work as a team, meaning we need to learn more about each other in order to work together effectively to creatively solve the problems of the obstacle course.
4. Starting The Journey: Paralleling our lessons learned from our horse teachers to our everyday lives, allows participants are able to see how the what our horse has taught us at home, at school, and into the future! How can we apply the lessons learned in "Starting The Journey" to our journey into the future being ourselves, while building healthy relationships.
Workshop Module #1:
Friendship Flower Creative Activity
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In our first workshop module, we will continue to our work on our healthy relationship skills. Each participant designs and creates their own Friendship Flower for our "Friendship Garden". During this module, participants will:
1. Add Positive Friendship Traits: First, participants are challenged to write a word or short sentence on each petal of what is important when we are building healthy friendships (such as communication, trusting each other, being kind, etc.).
2. Be Creative: Once we have all our friendship traits written down, participants get to express themselves by colouring and decorating their Friendship Flower.
3. Join The "Friendship Garden": After we are finished decorating our flowers, each participant will get to place their flower in our "Friendship Garden" and discuss why they chose each of their friendship traits. The "Friendship Garden" remains on display in the Barn Classroom throughout the workshop.
4. Take Them Home: At the end of the workshop, participants get to take their Friendship Flower out of the "Friendship Garden" and take them home to remember all of the important friendship traits that we discussed during the workshop.
Push Me Pull You - Objective: "Communication"
Equine Assisted Learning Arena Exercise #2
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Our second Equine Assisted Learning arena exercise is Push Me Pull You, where we work as a team with our horse teacher, to complete an obstacle course with the objective of "Communication". The desired outcome of this exercise is:
1. Effective Communication with Others: For communication to exist comfortably, we all need clear boundaries. How important is personal space while communicating? How can we adapt to working with other communication styles? With a focus on how important reading body language, active listening, and clear articulation can help us to clearly communicate and understand those around us.
2. Effective Communication with Ourselves: What are things we say to ourselves? Do we realize how powerful our own words are to ourselves? Do we listen to ourselves? Self-love is the first step towards being yourself and learning how to communicate with ourselves helps us to better understand what we want from our future!
3. Effective Communication with Our Horse: Now that we have worked with our horse teachers before and understand their body language, we can truly engage in their dialogue, include them in the plan making process, and ensure that the horse is feeling a part of the team - all important aspects of effective teamwork!
4. Problem Solving Plan Development: In order to find success within their teams, participants must work together and problem solve. In order for a plan to develop, communication must take place.
Workshop Module # 2:
Communication Style Quiz
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Learning what we need to know about ourselves to communicate with ourselves and effectively communicate with others around us. During this module, participants will:
1. Learn the Benefits: Learn and understand the benefits of learning their own communication style and getting a better understanding for other's communication style.
2. Learn the Styles: Learn about the 4 communication styles, what they need to communicate with them effectively, and what growing points each communication style has to develop and overcome.
3. Being a Leader: Learning about different communication styles will help participants to adapt to being a stronger leader. With different communication styles, we can have conflict within a team. Being a strong leader means we are able to adapt to different communication styles in order to effectively communicate with the team.
4. Teamwork: We may not like everyone on our team, but by understanding our teammates communication style, we can better understand what they need for effective communication and where they are coming from with their communication style. ​
Workshop Module # 3:
Journals & Self-Reflections
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Self-Reflections are an important part of learning more about ourselves. Journalling is also another way to self-reflect and better understand what we have learned. During this module, participants will:
1. Self-Reflect: At the beginning of the workshop, we complete a Self-Reflection worksheet on how we are feeling and how we would rate our life skills (such as leadership, teamwork, self-confidence, communication, etc.) on a scale of 1-5. At the end of the workshop, we complete another Self-Reflection to see how we feel now and to re-evaluate those same life skills to see how they have been developed throughout the day!
2. Journal: Participants will journal about their experience with their horse teacher after each of our Equine Assisted Learning arena exercises, such as what their horse taught them and how they can use these lessons in every day life. Journals allow us to parallel what we have learned to our home life, school life, and into the future! Journals are also an important part of self-reflecting. Participants are able to go back to their journals at a later date and self-reflect on what they have learned and how they can continue to use these skills.
