Scooping Up Books: Reading Logs & Goal Setting

Do your students need a boost in motivation for reading at home? This summer a girlfriend of mine and I were brainstorming ideas for her second graders.  She wanted to implement a program that might help her students track their progress and reflect on growth in their at home reading.  After much discussion we decided to go big or go home!

Note: this program does involve a small amount of extra class time and some classroom wall space to make it really fun.

Each month students get a "Scooping Up Books" reading calendar to use as log.  On the back side is a printed reflection sheet for students to do a very simple review of their favorite book that month. Each day students log the number of minutes or pages (whichever you prefer) on to the ice cream scoop.  They also check off the different genres they read in any given month. She does not require them to read from any particular genre, but you could if you were so inclined.  I also know some teachers like to have parent involvement with reading logs so my thought was parents could initial in each scoop if needed.

We decided that goal setting was going to be a critical part of this program. Each month students set a goal for themselves. At the end of each month they chart their personal progress and then set a new goal for the following month.

Additionally, each month a class total is calculated.  This is the part that takes some time on your part.  You can set it up as a quick whole class math activity, assign a student each month to calculate or just do it yourself.  As a part of the incentive we created a class bulletin board to show progress or need for improvement...depending on the month.  

If you want to create a cute 'Scooping Up Books' display you simply need an ice cream cone or dish labeled for each month of the school year.  Determine as a class how many minutes/pages a scoop of ice cream should equal.  You may need to determine this based on the size of your bulletin board space.  Then, at the end of each month add the appropriate number of scoops.  My girlfriend has the students who read the most each month decorate the scoops before hanging them up! I can't wait to see what it looks like in June!

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Character Goals

Are you a goal setter?  I like to think I am, but it's debatable.  I think I tend to only set goals in certain areas of my life....probably the areas that I am more likely to meet with success.  Yet, I totally believe goal setting with kids is fantastic!  Hypocrite?  Yeah, sometimes.

I've been working on a lot things that provide students the opportunity to set goals, track and then reflect on their progress. Some of them are basic, like math fact goals and nightly reading goals.

My most recent  project involved designing an activity that has students setting goals for character development.  My thought was to have them choose 3 character traits to really focus on, think about and actually set goals to work toward for the school year.  My hope being, that in addition to learning about what having good character means and what it looks like, students will see character as something they can learn, improve at and work toward growth just as they would in math or reading,

The idea is that if we help students take the time to think about ways in which they can specifically show good character, both at school and out in the world, then hopefully they won't simply become rule followers (though I absolutely love rule followers and happen to be a rather hard core rule follower myself),  but rather people who choose to live out desirable character qualities.  The big picture goal is for them to decide they want to be good people, good citizens, and successful individuals.

I know as teachers and parents we care very deeply about the academic success of our children (and we should), but I do think caring about who they become as people is equally important and having students set goals for their character development just sounded like a good idea.  Agree? Thoughts?

I was inspired to use some adorable clip art from  Educlips to put together some posters, puzzles, awards and brag tags to go along with these goal setting pages.  Click the cover image below to go to my TpT Store and take a look.  Meanwhile, I think I need to do some of my own goal setting....