A New Year and Helping Your Students Set Healthy Goals

Happy New Year! At the start of the new year, most people set goals or make resolutions for themselves. Some people want to work out more or become more organized, while others want to learn new skills and try new experiences. 

The idea of making and setting goals is one that we should implement into our middle and high school classrooms. Our students should get in the habit of always striving for self-improvement and planning to create the future they imagine for themselves. Below you will find various new year’s goal setting activities (for January or the new school year) that will get your students planning and growing!

Vision Boards will Promote a Growth Mindset and Goal Setting all Year
by Danielle Knight
A hot topic in education now is growth mindset. We are trying to teach our children to never give up, to keep going despite the many hardships and setbacks they may face. Creating a vision board and displaying it somewhere that they can see it daily is an excellent reminder to help them stay focused on what they really want in life and to do whatever it takes to achieve it. They will be constantly reminded of why they are doing the things they do everyday and the pride and happiness that will come as a result.

With my vision board workbook, students can work through it, describing attainable and reachable goals for their future, including intentions for the family, for school and themselves. The last four pages of the workbook turn into a poster that can be assembled and hung up on display. They can use a variety of magazines to cut out words, phrases, and images that reflect their personal goals. If you do not have access to magazines using the internet to find images works just as well…and there’s no mess! This is a great activity for January or the new school year.

Want to hear more? Here is The Study All Knight Podcast episode on Vision Boards

Helping Students Self-Reflect 
by 2 Peas and a Dog 

With all of the excitement of the holiday season, students can start to forget all of the good habits they worked hard to develop. When school resumes back after the holiday break, I take time to review classroom expectations, routines and procedures as well as help my students set goals for the new year. I want my students to see the value of goal setting and reflection. I model this process under my document camera and use examples from my real life. Students need to see that being an adult does not mean perfection. We have things we need to work on too! Check out this New Year’s Goal Setting Activity that I am going to use with my students during our first week back at school. 

Reminding Students to Think Positively 
by English, Oh My!

As students excitedly embark on Holiday break, teachers often hope their students come back to school refreshed, revived and excited. Because it is a new year and a fresh start for some, I find it important to review positive mindset and positive decision making. Sometimes as the year progresses, our students begin to lose their positive thinking, and this is a perfect time of year to review this! 

One of the first lessons I review with my students when they return from break is the difference between growth and a fixed mindset. I try to cultivate positive mindset in my classroom by displaying inspiring and motivational posters.  I constantly refer to these posters when I find my students (and myself!) are hard on themselves or have negative thoughts with their work or abilities.  Check out my Mindset Posters I have hanging in my classroom to inspire and encourage positive thinking!