Goal Setting: Making the Most of Your Year

You may have been thinking about goals you have for the new year? As we begin a new school year or when we return from the winter break, often we pause to think about how things are going and what changes we need to make. In today's post, I'll be sharing with you resources and book recommendations that support goal setting lessons you may be preparing. 

As we gear up for the new year, it's the perfect time to check on progress for the first half of the year, look for places to improve, and set new goals/plans for the remainder of the year. Children need to have plans.

There are so many great books about setting and making goals. Out of this list, my all time favorite has to be the Grace series by Mary Hoffman. I just love Amazing Grace.  Grace is one gal who will not listen to the word, "No!" She has her eyes set on being Peter Pan in the class play. Such a great example of making a goal and sticking to it with strength and determination.

Another favorite of mine is Wednesday Surprise by Eve Bunting. I just love this book because the young girl wants to read and sticks with it until she's able to surprise her family by reading a book all by herself.

Brave Irene and The Bee Trees are books I've highlighted before, and I highly recommend both of them. Salt in his Shoes and In the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson are also both perfect for connecting the importance of goal setting with those sports lovers in your classroom.

Setting a goal is easy to do, but certainly, kids love projects that are fun too.There are quite a few great project options available to teachers on Teachers Pay Teachers and on Pinterest. Over break, I created a board to make it easier to put these resource links in one place.

Follow Comprehension's board New Year's Resolutions/Goal Setting on Pinterest.

From this board, there are a few activities and blog posts that I want to highlight. The first are these great bulletin board ideas. My absolute favorite is the 2012 foldables. I can see the kids writing up great ideas, and they would be easy to make.

  

  

If you are wanting great print and go ideas, check out these amazing options from Teachers Pay Teachers. I just love projects, and these two craftivities will be lots of fun for your students. The mobile options comes from Mr. Hughes. It is updated and ready for this year. The second is super cute too, and I'm sure it's going to be updated if it hasn't already. Definitely check it out. I'm thinking you could make it into a shapebook.

  

I also love these printables from Blair Turner and Creative Lesson Cafe as well. There are several teaching options with both. If you're looking for a bulletin board idea, I think the printable from Creative Lesson Cafe can be made into the bulletin board I shared above. 

 

Once the goals are set, the key is to follow up periodically to check on progress and setting new goals. I think setting goals is a great thing for all of us. What goals do you have for this year? Perhaps having a few to share and use for modeling is a great idea too. I have a few for this year...

Lose weight and get in better shape

Learn to use technology to do demo lessons

and

Volunteer more in my community

Recently, I added this goal setting lapbook to my store. You can check it out by clicking the image of it below. It will be discounted 25% through the weekend.

There aren't websites that are specifically for New Years, so I thought I'd share this article about setting technology goals. It made me pause to think about new technology and what to tackle next. I am really really interested in learning html and mentioned above about using technology for demo lessons. I also would love to work through the Google training to learn more uses for the many apps available to us. What tech goals do you have?

I hope you and yours enjoyed the much deserved winter break. If you have special traditions you do as you return to school, please share. We all love quick and easy plans, right??

See you next month!