Student New Year’s Resolutions

Hey teacher friends!

Just stopping by in a flash to talk about student New year’s resolutions.  Do you do them with your students or no?

I love the new year.

There is just something about starting off with a clean slate with the promise of endless possibilities for the next 365 days.

I’m guessing some of your students might feel the same way too.

While I personally don’t do NYs resolutions for myself (because who are we kidding here, I never keep them up), I do like the idea of goal-setting for kids.

There is a statistic that says you are 42% more likely to achieve a goal if you write it down.

While that isn’t a guaranteed super high percentage, for some students, this might be the first time ever they have written down goals – or even thought about them.

And that in itself is a good reason to at least talk about resolutions and goal-setting for the new year.

To help you out, I created a quick little 2-page handout that might at least get their wheels turning when they are trying to think of their personal goals.

The first page is all about reflecting on the last year.

Plus it includes basic information like their name, age, and 3 favorite things.  This could be a really fun long-term project to see how the information changed fro year to year.

The second page covers their goals for the upcoming year.

Some ideas to help them get thinking:

Health Goals:

• eat breakfast everyday
• do at least 10 push ups daily
• have 3 less sodas a week
• go to bed by 9:30 pm on school nights
• no electronics after 8 pm at night
• brush and floss teeth every day
• try one new fruit or vegetable once per week

Home Goals:

• take out the trash weekly
• pick up bedroom every day
• offer to help clean up after pets
• give a parent or guardian a hug every day
• eat dinner as a family nightly
• play a board game once per week
• tell someone at home what good things happened at school every day

Friends Goals:

• Smile at 3 new people per day
• Ask one person a week how many siblings they have
• Approach someone who needs a friend to come sit together at lunch or recess
• Help a classmate if they get stuck
• Tell one friend per week how much they mean to you
• Allow someone else to “be right” at least once per day

School Goals:

• Get homework done every day
• Study spelling words for 10 minutes every night
• Practice math facts while waiting for the bus after school
• Challenge yourself to read a book just above your reading level every week
• Try and be the quietest person in the hallway for a month
• Have the cleanest desk in the classroom

Of course, these are just a few ideas that won’t work for every student or situation.  It’s really just to get them thinking about examples that might spark the perfect goals for them.

What others would you add to this list?  We would love to see them in the comments below!

And don’t forget to grab your freebie Students New Year’s Resolutions worksheet!

Click here to email your freebie

Happy New Year!

~Charity