New Year - New Goals...With a Bit of Arts and Crafts!

Being a special education teacher, much of my practice is centered around setting goals for my students.  With my student's IEPs the goals are often coming from a team of adults, teachers and other specialists, using data from the student to help them grow.

I do always try to start the year when we return from break with my students setting goals for themselves.  This year I wanted to do something a little different with my students and I found this great freebie on TpT from Created by MrHughes.  The mobiles were exactly what I was looking for, something that got my students writing and offered a chance to be creative with some coloring, cutting and gluing.

We started off by watching BrainPop's video on Setting Goals.  This really helped my students understand what a goal is, and how to write a good goal.  Next we took the time to write a first draft of their goals.  Then both myself and the paraprofessional held writing conferences with the students, and we provided support with spelling and grammar, as well as provided clarification for goals as needed.

The 2016 mobiles are a great decoration and inspiration for our classroom.  They have been a conversation starter for everyone who stopped by to visit our classroom.  The students enjoyed sharing which mobile they made and what their goals for 2016 are.