Setting Goals and Sticking to Them

As the school year is getting into full swing, I finally have a chance to comment on my goal setting strategy with my students.  The challenge, to get them to commit to EIGHT goals (Seven of which are academic) in their Interactive Notebook this year.



The introduction of this task was clear:  Eighth Graders should have EIGHT goals.  Goal setting allows you to see progress, be motivated, feel accomplished.  Goals can be LARGE items or LONG TERM GOALS (like running a 5K) or can be broken down into smaller, manageable goals or tasks or SHORT TERM GOALS (run around the block, then move up to running for 15 minutes, then for a mile...etc).  We compared this to a series of stairs.




I hope to check in with the students on these goals several times a year to check on progress.  Some ideas about motivation, is making paper chain to hang around the room as we accomplish some of these goals (as a class) to add or stickers to add to their traced hands that they posted in my classroom.

At the end of the year, I hope to have an opportunity for students to complete a Goal Board to take with them.  I found that idea from a fabulous resource Teacherspayteachers.com where my teaching colleagues can post lessons and other resources that they have created.   I also have made a template of my own Quarterly Goal spreadsheet modified for usage that is available for FREE!  We'll see how the year progresses and how these kids strive to reach those goals!

 Create A Goal Board (Smart Goals)s by The SuperHERO Teacher

Template Quarterly Goals  by Stefani's Hope

Visual Timer - my favorite clock!

One of my most favorite finds is my VISUAL TIMER that I use both at home and at school.  It has become a HUGE time management component of my eighth graders as well as the contingent I had during July in summer school.  It's sitting across from me RIGHT NOW as I type this as well!

I first saw this from Alejandra's YouTube site  http://www.youtube.com/user/HomeOrganizing and her own website.  She has some great ideas and I needed to find ways to structure my own time at home and in the classroom - to fight off those time vampires (Facebook, Email, etc) to put myself on a schedule to get things done.

My timer can be set up to sixty minutes by just sliding the plastic disk to the desired time.  Unfortunately, my students enjoy setting and resetting (especially when they're NOT supposed to!) but it since it always 'beeps' four times then stops, you don't have to stop what you're doing to turn it off. That makes it convenient to wrap up stuff and then reset it to the next option.  I like that better than other types of timers that keep going until you turn them off.  My colleagues like this one over my 'bus duty' alarm on my phone that sounds like the fire alarm.  (If I leave my phone on my desk in the morning...it continues to go off...oops!)

I also like the fact that it's NOT an overhead model.  I can prop it up on the chalkboard tray and kids in the back of the room can see it.  It also shows the time remaining in an ANALOG way... something that my kids are quite week at in this digital age (It's depressing how many fourteen-year-olds CAN'T tell time on my analog clock!!  I also still use the timer app on my phone, both this type of version and a digital version, but I'm in LOVE with this timer!  I hope to post pictures of it IN ACTION during my lab stations this year.

I bought my two from Amazon, but you can also find information about timers like these at Timetimer.com 

Enjoy! - Stefani

My Bright Idea: Color Coded Towels

I was in a white phase several years ago.  A crisp bleached laundered towel was the way to go.  Neutrals were calming.  A bathroom was supposed to be spa-like, serene, relaxing.  My, how times have changed.

Now, our house has exploded into chaos with four teen/preteens who seem to carpet their respective rooms with everything they can get their hands on.  Clothes and towels have become the new carpet in their opinion.  Cleaning their rooms mean shoving everything under the bed or in the closet.  The four hooks in the bathroom are always left empty.  I got tired of opening the cupboard to find there were no towels, yet walking into the laundry room and finding TONS on the floor.  It was never-ending and equally frustrating...

So, after watching my older son be particular about the towels he picked (the towels had to match - either solids or stripes, mixing and matching was NOT allowed, beach towels were not OK to use after a shower but OK to use at the pool) and watching the youngest have piles of once-used towels on the floor that then became a bed for the dog - I had an epiphany:  Color Coding.

Everyone now has their own color.  Two bath size towels each for starters.  If yours are wet and you didn't hang them up after your shower, your fault.  If they end up on the bathroom floor, it's clear who's responsible.  It also makes it easy to identify on the road or poolside (when we branch out into more towels) and eventually, the kids might actually be able to take them on with them when they move out...

The kids got to pick out their own colors (adults ended up with the whites we already had).  Fortunately, there was enough of a rainbow of choices that no one wanted the same color.  And to help, our bathroom is white with color accents, so coordinating, though not the primary concern, still was achieved.  Win-Win!

Color has always helped me organize in my classroom with the variety of students, but extending it into my own home was always a challenge.  Getting everyone on board was tricky - but no teenager wants to walk through the house naked, so that's a big motivator to comply with mom's BRIGHT IDEA!