You know how much I love goal setting with my class every month. I love New Years activities because it is such a natural time for reflecting and goal setting – whether on academic or classroom management goals.
When I created this New Years craft, I knew it would be a little too difficult for kindergarten. However, I think it would be perfect for lower elementary with support or upper elementary students!
In 1st grade, we did this New Year activity all together and it was perfect!
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Reflecting on the Past Year
Who doesn’t like to think about their favorite things? Even in the craziness of 2020, this is a fun way to look back and remember this past year.
It’s an easy way to get students’ brains warmed up for some of the deeper reflecting they are going to have to do soon.
Our favorites are displayed on the front of the New Years flip book craftivity so it’s the first thing people see when they are hanging up on our New Year Bulletin board display!
Then, students get to think back on the previous year for the first page of this New Year activity. I love this because it becomes a memory book they can look back on.
In lower elementary, we reflect on this questions together through turn and talks before students write:
- What is something I learned this year?
- Who did I become friends with this year?
- Where did I go this year? This one is a little more difficult in 2020, but students might even write “We stayed home.” It will certainly be a memory for years to come!
- What is a favorite memory from this year?
- What was a favorite story from this year / your favorite part of the year?
Especially this year, I love that these New Year activities allow students to look back at the growth they’ve made as well as remember the good things that have happened.
New Years Goal Setting
Even in Kindergarten and 1st grade, goal setting is super important and something we build into every day. Of course we’re going to build it into our New Years activities too!
As you set goals for the new year, some questions you might discuss as a class are:
- What did you improve at this year?
- What do you want to get better at this coming year?
- Is there something you want to learn?
- Is there a character trait that you want to work on?
The nice thing about goal setting is that these goals can be as broad or as specific as your students need.
For this New Years activity, I have included a labeled and a blank option. That way you can personalize.
New Years Resolutions
We also talk about setting New Years resolutions. I LOVE reading the book Squirrel’s New Year’s Resolution before we discuss setting New Year’s resolutions of our own.
In this story, it talks about how how a resolution is a promise that you make to be better or help others. It might be something that you want to learn, or something that you want to stop doing.
In lower elementary, this may end up being the same as one of their goals, and that is totally fine! It will just cement the idea that we set goals and work towards them.
New Years Flip Book Craft
After they finish all of the New Years writing activities, students can make the New Years flip book craft. This makes a great New Year bulletin board or hallway display.
We leave these up for quite a while because we will take them down again before third quarter conferences and reflect on where we are with our goals.
If you do student-led parent teacher conferences, this would be a good discussion topic.
You can grab these New Year Activities HERE! Your students will absolutely love reflecting and goal setting while writing and then making the New Years flip book craft.
