Goals and Daily Highlights

As a follow-up to my post yesterday about homework, today I want to share with you my goal sheet.  It looks like this...

I just print this front to back for my kiddos each week.  I have a spot for their reading goals, a spot for any work that's unfinished, and an "other" spot.  I should start by saying that my kids don't bring home unfinished work every night.  This is strictly for work that's unfinished due to poor choices.  At any point if a student has been talked to multiple times about getting to work, that's when they know they're going to have to bring their work home if they don't get it done: Basically it's a choice - do it here, or do it at home.  It's a pretty good motivator for them actually because if they bring it home, their parents know they had a rough day and can talk to them about it. The "other" is for anything special that we are doing or something they would like to do - it might also be for a day when they need to write a summary from the days book club or when they have something coming up that they need to prepare for like a play, concert, etc.  

On the right, I have a spot that says "Today's Highlights".  This is a place for students to JOT down the highlights from the day that they can talk to their family about at home.  This is my attempt to combat the "What did you do at school today?" "Nothing!"  craziness that I know happens.  The parents can then say, "Well, lets go look at your daily highlights sheet!" SCORE!

This is a new goal sheet for myself and my students this year.  I know it will take a little while for them at the beginning of the year but I'm hoping by the middle of the year they can do all of their afternoon expectations in 10 minutes!

Well, tomorrow starts my first day in 3rd grade with 20 eager pirates! Wish me luck!

Clip art and fonts in goal sheet: