Making French New Years Goals in the Classroom
Goal setting is a fantastic way to intentionally work towards something and feel the satisfaction of knowing you are getting closer to said goal. This is such an exciting way to build confidence and self-esteem in your students or children! Today’s blog post will discuss some ways to have your students write French New Year goals.
I don’t know about you but I find it really hard to get back into the groove of teaching in January. We’ve all just had a nice and long well-deserved break from school. Our hearts and bellies are full and, getting back into the swing of things feels HARD.
A purposeful (and also easy) activity to do on that first week back to school is to have your students brainstorm and write their own French New Year goals!
We’ve all made New Years Goals or resolutions before and some will even argue that they don’t work. However, it’s important to note that there’s a difference between a RESOLUTION and a GOAL.
The Difference between setting New Years Resolutions and New Years Goals:
Right off the bat, a New Years' resolution takes a slightly negative connotation. You are making an active pact to STOP or START doing something. It is often an unrealistic standard that you cannot achieve or will struggle to achieve.
A New Years' goal, on the other hand, is fueled by ambition to work towards a dream. It is not something that can be accomplished in a week. It is something that requires constant progress and improvement. I find the term “New Years Goal” a lot more positive and uplifting than a resolution, which feels like something needs to be resolved.
How to talk about New Years Goals in French
Chances are if you’re reading this, you teach French to elementary students. What better way to kick off the New Year than by engaging in an authentic learning task of writing down some French New Year Goals?
Your students may have already heard of a New Years' goal before, or may even have made some of their own in the past. I would start the conversation by sitting in a community circle (whether on a carpet or simply rearranging the chairs). Ask your students: How do you feel about the new year ahead? What are you excited about? What is something you can’t wait to do?
Have some friendly community-building conversations surrounding the notion of a new year. Some students may already go ahead and list some goals they have for this new year without even realizing it. This is also a great time to get to know what your students are looking forward to in school in the upcoming months (great opportunity for some feedback!)
Next, I would read a story that touches on themes of setting goals or self-improvement. It does not necessarily have to be a New Years' specific book, but rather a book that features a character who embarks on a journey of self-improvement.
French Picture Books For the New Year:
Tu y Arriveras - A book all about never giving up! A great read to empower students, even the ones who think it will be impossible to achieve one of their goals in the new year. The little magical creature allows the character in the story to realize that everything starts with a YET before they can finally do something!
Frisson L’écureuil - While this book may not initially seem like a goal-setting book, the reader can watch Scaredy Squirrel step out of his comfort zone and embrace the unknown. A great segway into taking a leap of faith in the upcoming New Year by setting some goals that may FEEL scary but are totally attainable! Plus, this book is absolutely hilarious for primary students.
Squirrel’s New Years Resolutions - Sadly, I haven’t been able to find this book in French however, it is still a great read that you can translate. I love how this book is very specific to the New Year and setting goals. While it does use the word resolution, you can definitely focus on the message of doing better in the new year. I love how the fictional characters aim at helping others rather than focusing only on themselves.
Est-ce que les girafes dansent? - Again, not a specific New Year goals book, however, the idea of not being able to do something YET is so powerful in this book. It’s a great way to tie in a discussion on growth mindset and how a New Year goal can be attempting to do or master something that they can’t currently do. The story is super sweet and the message is very clear, hard work and determination can help you achieve anything!
La Mauvaise Graine - I love this book so much because I truly feel it can be used to discuss a wide array of themes and topics! This book can really help kick off your New Year goal-setting discussions because the fictional “seed” character has been labelled as bad. He continues to live his life this way until one day he just DECIDES to change. What a great way to teach kids that we don’t have to stay the same forever. We can choose to change, make new goals and set new aspirations at any time we want!
P.s. I have an entire book companion resource to go along with this book if you’d like some printables and activities to pair with it. Click here to check it out!
Click image to check out this French book companion resource in my TPT shop!
Brainstorm a list of collective goals
This part may surprise you or give you some new ideas. We often focus on creating individual goals but what if I told you it could be SO much more meaningful and impactful to co-create some classroom goals for the New Year!
Last year, my class and I did this. We decided on some group goals we’d like to work on in the New Year. Some were pretty funny like solving our own problems during free time instead of going to the teacher (haha yep- that was a big issue last year!) but others were very inspiring such as: try and reach 25 minutes of silent reading or get the entire class to learn how to tie their own shoes.
At first, I did this activity sort of as a time-filler moment and also as an introduction to have students understand how to create goals. I didn’t think too seriously about the activity until… something beautiful happened. That very same lunch break, I noticed a friend helping another friend with their shoelaces. He was actually trying to explain the steps to his ami. It was the most endearing thing. Over the coming weeks, I also noticed my students putting in extra effort during our silent reading time. How sweet!!
All this to say, the co-created goals helped strengthen our bond and classroom community. I highly suggest starting with some collective goals before moving on to the individual goals.
Identify some individual goals
After students understand what a goal really is, you can have them work towards creating their own individual French New Years' goals!!
There are many ways you can do this, from super simple to more complex. For starters, if you’re looking for something in a pinch, you could really just have them write some goals in their journals so that they can look back at them at the end of the year.
If you want something that can double as classroom decor or a bulletin board, then I’ve got a great product suggestion for you. This French New Years' bulletin board display is bright and vibrant, with all the elements you need to create a display that will turn heads in the hallway!
Click the image to see more about this bulletin board set on TPT!
This resource comes with easy print and cut letters and party hat pieces to assemble to make a writing flip-book. You can choose to have your students write about a new goal, something they want to learn, something they want to improve, or all three!
If you don’t have access to coloured ink or simply want to save time, you can also just print a lot of the pieces on bright coloured paper so that students don’t have to colour them in, and can just get to writing, whatever floats your boat!
If you’re virtual teaching this year, you can totally still have your students write up some French New Years goals. You may opt to use Google Slides or Google Forms, depending on the grade you’re teaching!
Another amazing online tool is Jamboard! If you haven’t tried it out yet, it’s a free interactive whiteboard where students can all collaborate on. They can type on sticky notes onto the board in real-time. I used Jamboard constantly last year while teaching virtually. It’s neat because you can share your screen and students can watch as new sticky notes and ideas are added. This would work well while making the collaborative New Year goals I mentioned earlier as well!
If you choose the Google Slides route, check out this digital New Years' class book. Students can work on their own slides and then you, the teacher, can put it all together to make a class book of goals! It would be fun to go over every student page together and could even turn it into an oral presentation, where students have to share their own slide with the class!
Click image to shop this digital resource!
Revisit collective and individual goals throughout the year
Now that you’ve had fun creating some attainable goals, don’t forget to revisit them! Let’s be real, have you ever made some New Years' goals and then kinda sorta forgot about them in a month? No shame! This is why we need to revisit and remember the goals and promises we have made!
Whether you want to revisit the goals every month or every few months, try and squeeze in a little time to take a look and see how far some of your students have come! They’ll be so so impressed to see if some of the goals have already been attained or have already shown some big progress!
With that, I hope this post helps you plan out your first few weeks back in the classroom and to incorporate New Year goal writing with your students! Have a fabulous start to your New Year and come check back soon for a new blog post.
