Goal Setting - Where Do You Start?

Have I mentioned yet that we are excited to have a hockey player as a mentor?  Having the original tour Kieran gave us of the Hockey Canada training facility really created some excitement in our students.  One of them mentioned that they bet it took a lot of work to get to that point.  "Yes," I replied.  "Did they think it happened overnight?" This is where our discussion of goal setting started.

After watching Kieran's video on goal setting, the students set about brainstorming different things that they would like to accomplish/improve this year.  From that list, they had to choose one school related goal.  The reason (because you know they asked why it had to be school related) was because we wanted our classmates to be able to support us once our goals were posted.

From there, they had to create three supporting or short term goals that they felt would help to get them to their long term goal.  This proved hard for some.  We needed to refer to the SMART goal framework to see that great goals needed to be measurable.  How would they know they achieved it?  How could their peers support them when they were successful or needed help?

Once our goals were set, it was time to put them into play.  I printed off templates of a number of different hockey rinks.  We set the goal line as the long term goal as that was ultimately where they wanted to get.  The stopping and starting points were the face-off circles.  This is where we placed our short term goals as any long term goal needed a place to start.  In one of my classes, we have a goalie.  We used this as a teachable moment for the non hockey players to explain when the play would go to each face-off circle.  He was in his glory.

The students put the extra finishing touches on their rinks through the use of goal related sponsors (Yamaha sponsored a lot of the band goals) and fans in the stands. The students were excited to post their goals for their classmates to see.  Many of them were up and reading them right away and looking for ways they could support each other.  I love the sense of camaraderie that posting our goals creates.  I look forward to seeing them work together to achieve their first set of goals.

Welcome to the Journey and Goal Setting in Akulivik!

September Over View

We had so much fun with August/Septembers focuses! To start out the year for “Welcome to the Journey” we made hand prints and wrote “I have what it takes!” on top. Then we each signed our handprints. We started learning about our athlete with puzzle clues (an idea I found on our amazing community!). We split into groups and had races to see which group could decipher the puzzle first, and then we researched some new words to understand the clue. After each clue we added to our giant KWL chart about our athlete, which we will continue to revisit throughout the year, and we added a little to our athlete discovery board.

After we learned that our athlete was Jesse Cockney we watched the first video. The kids were so excited to hear him say my name and our village! One of our “Wonders” on our chart was the Olympics so we started to research about the Winter Olympics. We learned all about the symbol of the Olympics and made our own with tissue paper.

We did a “Write the room” activity all about the sports in the Winter Olympics. We watched some videos including the amazing highlights from the Sochi Olympics and we read all about the Olympics with some comprehension books.

Then September started and we went full force into “Goal Setting!” We talked about what goals were, then we watched Jesse’s goal setting video. The kids were captivated! We re-watched the video while filling out a fill in the blank sheet that I designed to get the important parts.

We then began writing our SMART goals. SMART stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Timed. The students created water colour backgrounds for their mountains, and cut out a mountain silhouette to glue on top. They then wrote their steps for their goal on small pieces of paper and glued it onto the mountain.

 

Throughout these two months we also learned about what a mentor is, and created a video entitle “A Mentor is…” which I will be posting soon!

We had a crazy, busy, super fun start to the year, and the kids are so proud of everything they have accomplished!

Thanks to Classroom Champions and Jesse Cockney! 

What does it take to be a Champion?

What does it take to be a champion?

This is the essential question we started our discussion with.  Once we shared ideas about being a champion, I read the story Salt in His Shoes while the students listened to find out what helped Michael Jordan to be successful.

This lead to a discussion about what makes a mentor and we brainstormed examples of mentors in our lives.  Because our Grade 6s are the oldest students in our school, we provide them with a variety of opportunities to be leaders of the school.  Many of the students were able to recognize that during these times they are mentoring the younger students.



   
Athlete Mentor Reveal

The students were very excited to finally learn who our athlete mentor was.  We started by learning about all of the Canadian Athlete Mentors, by doing a gallery walk to learn about their sports, hometowns, and other interesting facts.  At the end of the gallery walk, students selected an athlete to introduce to the class.

After we met the athletes, we revealed clues on the SmartBoard, one at a time, to narrow the field down to two athletes:  Jesse Cockney and Barrett Martineau.  Students took turns putting together pieces of a puzzle created by Wendy Billinsky (thanks) to identify our athlete – Jesse Cockney!  We concluded this lesson by watching Jesse’s introduction video. The students were very excited to meet Jesse and they were very impressed that he mentioned us in the video.

CHALLENGES

Video Tour

Students were thrilled to find out that our first challenge was to create a video tour of the school.  We had spent quite a bit of time talking about what is important about our school as we worked to develop a Charter of Rights and Freedoms for our class and create a Code of Conduct that would respect every student’s rights.  So they were ready with plenty of ideas about what we could tell Jesse about our school.

Once we narrowed down the scenes for our video tour, students signed up to work on the one that was most important to them.  They worked in small groups to plan the scenes using a storyboard.  Then we began to film using the classroom iPads.  

Our Mascot and Motto were featured in our video, which provided us with an opportunity to revisit a song that was created a few years ago, highlighting our school Motto: 

Growing

Achieving

Together

Opportunities for all

Respectful, Responsible, Resourceful

Goal Mountain

 

In order to prepare for Jesse’s Goal Setting video, students were asked the following question, “If you nothing could stop you, what would you want to achieve?”  Once students had drawn a picture of them achieving this goal, we reflected on their own experiences by thinking of a time when they were successful at achieving a goal they had set for themselves.

Our second challenge was presented by Jesse – create your own version of Goal Mountain. 


Students were encouraged to select their own dream goal to put at the top of their goal mountain.  They explored the concept of short-term and long-term goals by recording ways they can work toward their dream goal using the following prompts

1. What can you do now?
2. What can you do this year?
3. What can you do in the next few years?
4. What can you do when you are close to reaching your goal? 

We worked together to set a classroom goal to reduce food waste in our classroom.  I am looking forward to using what we have learned so far about goal setting to guide the students as they write two more goals for the year.   One goal will be something that will help them to be successful in school this year.  Another goal will be related to a personal interest outside of school.

This week is our Terry Fox Run and I am excited to see the students make new connections to his journey, relating the Classroom Champions Topics to Terry's accomplishments.

 

September Monthly Summary

September 2016- Goal Setting

   Objectives: Students will set a SMART goal for reading and another goal about a topic of their choice.

Standards: CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.5.6

With some guidance and support from adults, use technology, including the Internet, to produce and publish writing as well as to interact and collaborate with others.

My class started by discussing the importance of setting goals. We then spent time talking about the importance of reading. We use the Guided Reading Level system at my school, so students are aware of their current reading level (a letter A-Z). Students then spent time setting goals for reading. We also talked about how setting short term goals will help them reach their end of the year reading goal.

To follow up on this lesson, we watched the video from our mentor, Lex. My students were really impressed and inspired by his determination. To set more goals, we utilized our digital portfolios. Students created a webpage to share their classwork, information about themselves, and their goals. Students set long term and short term goals on a variety of topics (including becoming better at sports, video games, and school. The great part about students being able to write their goals on the digital portfolios is that they can share the goals with their families. We know the importance of having families involved in reaching goals, so I am excited about this piece.

To create the digital portfolios we used Google Sites. Thanks to Allison Smith for sharing a guide to help my class set these up!

                                                       

                           

September Goal Setting with Lex Gillete

September : Goal Setting

We began by watching a youtube video called Audri's Rube Goldberg Monster Trap. The link is here:
https://youtu.be/0uDDEEHDf1Y?list=PLh6K5ZpyE1u4iLRSkzWufpe497FwAxC1m. In the video a boy has built a complex set of reactions that ultimately end up with a monster getting trapped. The important part of the video is that he predicts it will only work a couple times out of about 20 tries. When it does not work he does not get upset, he just keeps trying and when it does finally work he is so excited. I thought it was important to front load some of these ideas for my students so that when they watched Lex's video they would already be thinking about persistence as a necessary part of reaching our goals.
My students were so incredibly excited to watch Lex's goal setting video after watching his introductory video. They already feel like he is their friend. I wish he could have heard them cheering when he said our class's name! Lex did such a great job of explaining goal setting in a way that the students could understand it. After the video we had a discussion about what sorts of long term goals my students have and how we can do lots of things along the way to meet our big, long term goals. At the end of the lesson the students wrote and drew their long term goals. We hung them up in the classroom and my intention is to keep them up all year and repeatedly refer to them. I want to keep the discussion going all year about what short term goals they can work towards now to reach their long term goals. For example, if they want to be a teacher, they need to learn how to read and write in First Grade so that they can graduate elementary then high school and then go to college. I can already see how participating in Classroom Champions is affecting our classroom climate and helping the students become even more excited about school and learning.

September - What a Great Month!

Welcome to Our Journey

It has truly been an exciting month for both my students and for me!  My class had been having fun while working towards finding out just who our mentor was and then we had the privilege of watching Jesse introduce himself to our class.  All of my students cheered when he said a shout out to our grade 7/8 classroom located here in Thorold, Ontario.  They truly could not believe their great fortune of being recognized by Jesse in his video!  This was a highlight of the month of September for my kids. In the school hallways I would frequently hear my students recounting to other classes how Jesse had mentioned us by name.

A picture of Jesse visiting one of his schools.

This is the video that had my class standing and clapping when Jesse mentioned us by name.

To help my students discover our mentor I found a picture of Jesse that had his name attached and then utilized a web site called Jigsaw Planet to turn it into a puzzle.   My class had a tremendous amount of fun putting the pieces together to finally solve our "Mentor Mystery"!    

Here is the link our "Mentor Mystery" puzzle.Jigsaw Planet

We also created a bulletin board that included all of the monthly themes for the year so that we can see what important topics we will be learning with Jesse throughout this year.  Of course Jesse's picture is front and center!

This is our current Classroom Champions bulletin board

I had a great deal of fun filming my video about Westmount Public School.  It was interesting to try to see my school as a newcomer might view it.  Westmount was built as a neighbourhood school in the 1950s and has about 190 students attending this year.  We are located in a lower income area and most of our students utilize our breakfast club and also  have access to classroom snack bins that are full of  nutritious snacks, as well as sandwiches for lunches.  We provide winter jackets, hats, mitts, and boots for any students who need them.  Hugs are always available!

Welcome to Westmount School, Thorold, Ontario

Goal Setting

Jesse, you set us on the path towards creating our goals for the month of September and throughout this school year.  Your video inspired my class and also gave them the tools to set in motion the actions required to work towards, and eventually reach their desired goals.  We have  had several class discussions and working sessions that is helping us to develop our planning on how to reach the top of our own goal mountains.  

Jesse's Goal Mountain video

I created a google slide presentation of my students working upon their Goal Mountains.  We worked through several lessons before they began to actually create their own mountain.  My class reflected upon smart goals and how important it is to embed smaller goals along the way up the mountain so that we can indeed climb steadily towards our end goal.  Adversity and setbacks were also part of our discussions as life is never a steady climb in a straight line.

The building of our Goal Mountains

At the end of every month Westmount School celebrates the accomplishes of our students in an assembly.  This is an opportunity for students from all grades to have a chance to shine in front of the whole school.  On Friday, September 30th we will be presenting to our school body what we have learned about setting goals.  My class decided that we should share our good fortune of being a Classroom Champion classroom with our school community each month at these Celebration Assemblies.  My students will share their journey so far, and will also teach the other classes the secret called Goal Mountain.  They believe that this information is meant to be shared!  My students also created inspirational goal videos for this assembly that I will share with you below.  They searched for quotes about goals, wrote their interpretation of the quotes, and then we held class discussions.  Please look for the music link that is embedded into each slide show as they took the time to choose just the right piece of music to help get their message across to the audience.  Enjoy!

First Group Slide Show


Second Group Slide Show


Third Group Slide Show


Fourth Group Slide Show

Even though September is drawing to a close it is definitely not the end of setting goals and Goal Mountain.  My class will continue to pursue their goals and dreams throughout this year, and hopefully, their lifetimes.  Thank you Jesse for taking the time to inspire this younger generation to not give up, to work towards their hopes and dreams, their goals.  Thank you for making these children know that they matter.

September Goal Setting

This month was an awesome start to a year long project my students are very excited about.  We began by learning about Classroom Champions and Lex Gillette  We kicked off the September lesson by watching his video on goal setting.

We've also been watching Class Dojo's videos on Growth Mindset, and my students have already picked up on the power of "yet" and the importance of treating our mind like a muscle - one that needs to be challenged with daily work.

We keep data folders to keep track of reading, writing and math progress.  For their year long goals, many of my students decided to focus on academic goals we have already discussed in class: memorizing all their math facts, reaching a certain reading level, or improving their work completion. Other students decided to focus on behavior goals, or personal goals that they can work on outside of class (such as being able to do the splits).

We've scheduled time into our weekly routine to check back in with ourselves and each other on the progress we're making towards our goals, both through using data folders to keep track of our academic progress and the online portfolios to reflect on our year-long goals.

Check out some of their year-long goals here:

Bevany's Goals
Melanie's Goals
Damien's Goals
Seaunne's Goals

Objective: Students will set a SMART year-long goal.  
Standards addressed: CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.5.6: With some guidance and support from adults, use technology, including the Internet, to produce and publish writing as well as to interact and collaborate with others.  

Goal Setting

 For Goal Setting, we were challenged to think of a long term goal and 3 short term goals to help us achieve our long term goals. Lex had a great metaphor of pushing a sled with weights. At first it is hard, but if we take off our challenges, weights, little by little, our goal becomes closer and easier to acheive.

I had my class think of a long term goal that they could achieve by either the end of the year or end of December.


 Many students thought about improving their grades. Getting small or short term goals to help, really kept them accountable. By making sure they write down their homework daily, to telling their parents that they have homework, then turning in homework daily.

Some students wanted to get in fitter shape and run further. They planned out 3 easy steps that they could achieve, and I have 2 students already crossing off their short term goals, because they were already achieved!

I cannot wait to read their goals back to them in December and see how much progress they have made.