The start of a new year is a time where a lot of people take time to create “New Year’s Resolutions” as they reflect on how their prior year went and changes they want to make going into a new calendar year. That’s a BIG task for adults let along some of our young learners. I saw something like this a few years back and loved implementing it in my classroom with my students. I cannot remember where I got it from, but I remember loving it!
The idea is simple. At the end of the day, your students take a minute to reflect on their day and color in the box for that specific day according to the color code to the left. This should be a minute activity. Students can keep these in their take home folders so their parents could also see how their days went. If you’d rather, keep them at school, that’s great too. It’s completely up to you. As the teacher, I took a look through my students’ reflection pages weekly so that I could take a few minutes to chat with a student who had a few bad days in a row and see what’s going on.
At the end of the month students can pause and take a look at how their month went by taking quick glance at the colors. From there students can write out a reflection page and write out things they have control of to make the next month better than the one had before.
Their reflection pages will only be partway filled by the time they leave you in May, but it creates the habit and maybe, just maybe they will continue with their daily reflection. This would be a great things to start at the beginning of the school year as part of your SEL lessons. Feel free to change the color meanings. This would also be GREAT for teachers and admin to complete as well!
Thank you! I love this idea! I’m going to start it when we get back from break!