Goal Setting for the New School Year

August 16, 2023 by Sarah White Leave a Comment

My daughter just started eighth grade, and as kids get older, I think it’s important to talk about their goals for the year in terms of learning, friendships, hobbies and more.

This can be done informally at home, or in the classroom. Having goals encourages kids to think in terms of a growth mindset, understanding that they might not be great at a particular skill from the beginning, but with practice they can improve.

The Thinker Builder has a great goals writing activity that kids can use on their own or in the classroom to outline their goals for the school year (or the new year if you want to do this in December or January as well).

It outlines a writing prompt based on an acronym for goals: the guts of the goal, obstacles standing in their way, action steps and looking ahead.

The guts of the goal means a goal statement and noting what success looks like and the time frame involved. Looking ahead is about how they will feel about reaching the goal and what they will do next.

In addition to the worksheet, there’s a whole set of goal setting materials on their Teachers Pay Teachers page, including a goal planning booklet for kids to use to help them set good goals, a 3D block-shaped presentation version (as well as 2D and bulletin board options).

There are also materials to help the students keep each other accountable (in pairs or small groups) to working on their goals. This would be a great way to get kids thinking about goals they can accomplish thorough the year and keeping it on their mind by doing a regular check in with each other (as an adult I could totally use that, too!).

The full collection is 36 pages and it can be used with kids in third through eighth grades.

[Photo: The Thinker Builder]

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Celebrate Inventor’s Day by Learning about Inventors

Several countries have a day set aside to honor and recognize their inventors, but Nov. 9 is a special one that’s known as Tag der Erfinder in German. It’s celebrated in Germany, Austria and Switzerland and it falls on Nov. 9 because that’s the birthday of Hedy Lamarr.

Hedy Lamarr is widely known as an actress but there’s a lot more to her story. You can get a little of it geared to little kids in the Little People, Big Dreams book Hedy Lamarr (32 pages, hardcover, published 2023 by Frances Lincoln Childrens Books, suggested retail price $15.99).

The book explores her birth in Austria and how she spent time when she was young coming up with inventions. She became an actress, married an arms dealer, made her escape to America and became an actress again.

But she also helped develop a frequency-hopping signal device for airplanes that was used by the Americans and their allies during World War II. That technology became the basis for wireless technology such as wifi and GPS.

While Inventor’s Day is a great time to learn about Hedy Lamarr, you can take this opportunity to check out books and do little studies on lots of different inventors. If there’s an inventor or an invention your child is particularly interested in, that’s a great place to start. It’s fun to think about all the things we use every day that didn’t always exist; someone had to invent them!

For a start here at Craft Gossip you can learn more about Garrett Morgan, who invented traffic lights; Maria Oroso, who developed a clay oven that could cook food without electricity; and more female inventors and scientists.

And for more general inventors’ fun, check out this inventors word search from Fun Findery (and another from Let’s Do Puzzles) or take a quiz on inventors and their inventions from Flanders Family Home Life.

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