Picture Perfect Class!

For my back-to-school bulletin board, I used Kimberly Geswein's Font "KG Second Chances Sketch". The PRECIOUS cameras came from Jessica Sawyer Design on Etsy! They are so cute! Go buy them ASAP!

So, as I begin a new school year, I like to look ahead and start setting goals. I want to be a better teacher each year!  There are so many things I need to do to be better. I'm not perfect. I slack, get lazy, cry, and sometimes need an extra unsweetened iced tea on rough days. I think making goals each year can help me strive to be better and be accountable for it! :)  So, I created this gem:

Click the picture to download.

I printed mine off and plan to keep it nice and safe in my Erin Condren Teacher Planner. 

Some of my goals...

Organizational:

*Level my new books from Scholastic

*Organize my theme books

Teaching:

*Plan guided reading lessons EVERY DAY (I'm the master of "off the cuff")

Personal:

*Make my bed each day (am I 12 years old?)

*Go to the gym 4-5 times a week (yeah, right!!!)

*BE POSITIVE :)

What goals do you have this year?  It helps to say (type) them out loud! HA!

Setting Goals

We at What the Teacher Wants love all you teacher bloggers out there! 

It's so hard to keep up with everything that's out there, so I wanted to draw your attention to our friend, Mrs. Saoud at Primary Graffiti. She recently posted about this fabulous data notebook which has 45 pages of printables focusing on collecting data and helping students set goals.

I think it's important to have students set goals for themselves. Last year, my 5th grade team focused on reading fluency and every month my students had a monthly reading goal that they worked towards. I know that it really helped them improve their reading abilities over the school year. They specifically knew what to work on, they worked on it all month, I reminded them of it during our conferencing time, and then they were re-tested and given a new reading goal at the end of the month. I saw HUGE successes come from this!

(As an fyi - If students didn't meet their goals at the end of the month, they would usually continue with the same goal for the following month.)

This year, I want to make goal-setting more formal. I have created this page that will go in their binders to help them set goals in all subjects, all year long. I think it will be fun to look back at the end of the year and see all the progress they've made.