Setting & Achieving Your Hopes and Dreams
What are your hopes and dreams? What are your goals? Are they the same thing? When I think of my goals, ugh I think when and how will I lose the baby weight from my having my son. On the other hand, when I think of my hopes and dreams I feel more blissful and start to imagine a trip to Italy or learning to crochet a beautiful toy for my baby. Why is it that the change in words changes my attitude so much?!
It is very important to teach goal setting for kids. Responsive classroom is all about developing the student academically, socially, and emotionally. My first year of teaching in a responsive classroom school I learned of their method of goal setting through identifying your hopes and dreams. I LOVE THIS! I always have my students brainstorm and write down their hopes and dreams. Then they get to pick a spot in the room where they are posted. We refer back to them often!
I like to have my students pick hopes and dreams academically and personally. I also model picking goals for myself professionally and personally. Click the picture or button below to grab the free digital or printable hopes and dream activity!
In order to help my students identify the hopes and dreams they want to focus on that year we start off with some books! We read a few books over the first two weeks of school and talk about how the characters are going after their hopes and dreams. We discuss what their hopes and dream are, how they achieve them, and their feelings along the way.
By the time that we do the hopes and dreams activity, they are very familiar with the concept and may have even been thinking about goal setting themselves!
My favorite books to use for teaching hopes and dreams are:
On the day of the activity I use these leading questions to get students thinking about their hopes and dreams:
What would make this year a “dream” year?
What would we need to do to make that happen?
How would we feel while we did that?
What is something that you especially want for yourself?
What does a dream year look like, sound like, and feel like?
Who can help you make your hopes and dreams happen?
Check In
Half way through the year, we check in our hopes and dreams to reflect on our accomplishments. We decide if we need to change our actions to help get to our hopes and dreams or if we accomplished it already and need to set a new goal.
It is important to celebrate PROGRESS! I do not want students to feel discouraged if others have achieve their goals and they have not yet. Keep this inspirational! During this check in is another great time to read one of the mentor texts to talk about continuing to try and strive for your hopes and dreams.
Depending on the age of your students, you might want them to write down action steps for their goals to keep in their folder or at home. I did this with my 5th graders, but not with my 2nd graders. Any age would benefit from it, just depends on your students!
Inspire those little hearts and minds!
Supporting Students Reaching Their Hopes and Dreams
You can help students reach their goals by helping to develop the academic, social, and emotional skills they need during morning meeting time. Morning meeting is another responsive classroom practice that develops these skills for your students in the most AMAZING WAY!
I have preplanned morning meetings for the ENTIRE YEAR that align to the social emotional themes that will help your students grow and develop to reach their goals.
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