Setting goals is an important lesson to learn, especially when we are young. The first week of school, my students set reading goals for themselves for the month. We talked about setting attainable and reachable goals. Since my classroom theme is hot air balloons, I took a picture of each of my students and printed them out. Each month we take down our goal and reflect on if we reached our goal, or what we can do next month to ensure that we reach our next goal. The students actually love this! The pictures and goals are set up in our classroom library and so they are reminded of their goal everyday when they go into the library. They are even starting to be really encouraging for each other. They look forward to our monthly goal reflection. We are well into our second goal of the year, and they are already talking about how close they are to meeting their goals. Teacher win!

This activity was also something that we did the first week of school. I gave the students a blank poster board and asked them to draw whatever they wanted. I wanted them to draw something that reflects them. After everyone had a chance to draw a picture, I cut the poster board up into puzzle pieces. The students then had to work together to put the puzzle back together. We were focusing on using respectful language and the students could only touch one puzzle piece at a time. We took turns moving the pieces around, so everyone had a turn to put the puzzle piece together. They did a great job working together! It was a great team building activity.

After the puzzle is completed, we take a group photo and then I print and hang it up in the classroom. At the end of the year, each student gets to take one piece of the puzzle home with them so they will always have a piece of our class.

Do you have any team building activities that you use the first week of school, or throughout the year?

Jestine Cross
Jestine Cross

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