Happy New Years Eve...Eve!!

Hey, hey,  hey!!!

I hope all of you have had a nice, RELAXING break thus far-you all deserve it!! :)

In our team planning right before we went out for break we were talking about the new year and new goals for our kiddos.  Every year we do my little New Years glyph (free in my TPT shop) but this year, we wanted to add more MEANING behind it. 

We plan to do the glyph except this year instead of the kiddos just picking any New Years Resolution (b/c besides let's be honest...how many 1st graders REALLY get the importance of "eat healthier" or "exercise more"!?!? HA!) we are going to tie it into our unit of study for writing workshop.

Our fabulous Language Arts coach sent us this link to a blog post that really helped inspire me...
https://chartchums.wordpress.com/?s=new+year.
If you read that post it can give you new, fresh ideas for the new year in your classroom. 
There were several ideas/quotes/perspectives in the post that really stuck out to me. 

In our mini-lesson when we get back we will spend time reflecting on ourselves as authors and ask ourselves "What is something I can do, as an author, to improve my writing?"

*This craftivity may take us a few days in order for us to really get the meaning, importance and point across to our students, but THAT'S OK!  We want them to understand that real authors set goals for themselves, and what better time to do that than in the NEW YEAR!!

As the teacher you will model your goal during the mini lesson and then allow them to go back to their seat to brainstorm their goal(s).  You can allow the students to meet up with their partner to share their goal(s) and even use their partner as a resource to help make their goal(s) even better.

Be sure to stop throughout workshop time to praise students with great goals.  This not only lights up that kiddos world, but it also gives ideas to other students who may need that extra little "push." 

When the students have completed their glyph, we plan to share them, praise them, and hang them out in the hallway for others to admire :)  Directions for the glyph are provided in the download!

OH!  And to add a little flare...you could buy those little party blowers from Party City or even at the grocery store and tape them on to the mouth of the face each child will create with the glyph because we need to CELEBRATE our new writing goals and our next step in becoming better authors!! :)

Enjoy the New Year friends--it's going to be a GREAT one!!!!