Archive for the 'Wellness' Category

As promised, I am presenting our student goals.  I found it helpful to have a pretty good understanding of my students, what makes them tick.  So when we talked about creating goals I was able to guide the discussion toward their passions and interests.

On the second day of our project, I was reviewing the Work Board and the icons for activities.  One boy eagerly said, “I’m doing shots.”  I looked at him and tried to figure out what he meant.  When he saw an odd look on my face, he tried another word, “hits.”  Then the bell went off in my head!  This kid is a hockey player and he’d been searching for a word that meant something like shot and hit.  “Oh, you mean goals!”  You need to know your kids ;D Since I need an icon for the board I’ll grab an image of a goal from hockey.

I worked with small groups of children, communicating passion for something they would like to learn to do better.  Using the SMART goal model, we defined our goals and set a performance standard and deadline.  I tried to work the children around to choosing a first goal that I thought was possible in the limited time frame we were working with.  That is about 5 weeks including a week of winter vacation.  After all, they cannot learn to read the selection of read aloud books in our classroom library while they are in kindergarten.  We tightened up the goals to more manageable chunks.

Our conversations were great and I highly recommend this activity for any teacher.  Working in small groups allowed us a bit of conversation and team help in creating a plan of action.  The sweet piece at the end of goal writing is when they add an illustration of what it will look like when they reach their goal.  I think that is an important piece of the goal, imagining success.

As the fearless leader, I was challenged to give some thought to supports the children need in order to meet their personal goal.  Children who are receiving reading support outside of the classroom, shared their goal with the specialist.  She is now part of the team. 

Five children want to be better artists.  When I shared their goal with the art teacher, she wanted photocopies and hung them on the classroom wall so she can remember and provide support.

When a boy said he wanted to learn to tie shoes so he could be an “expert,” I enlisted our occupational therapist and the boy’s Dad to provide extra support as well.

I know that I can find help, all over our building, from staff who just like to help a kid out.  It’s part of what we do as teachers.  It’s also part of what parents do every day.  I’ll be sure to share this goal with the children’s parents so they too are part of the winning team.

Here’s a YouTube slideshow of some of our student goals, starting with a sample.  Not all goals have been shared. Don’t forget to get the full screen version.