Mentor Monday: Setting Goals

Linking up with Emily at The Reading Tutor/OG for Mentor Monday! This week is all about goal setting. The beginning of the year is always a good time to revisit past goals and set new ones. Two of my favorite books to use to teach goal setting are  Miss Rumphius by Barbara Cooney and Wednesday Surprise by Eve Bunting.
Miss Rumphius is the story of Alice Rumphius, who longed to travel the world, live in a house by the sea, and do something to make the world more beautiful.  The countless lupines that bloom along the coast of Maine are the legacy of the real Miss Rumphius, the Lupine Lady, who scattered lupine seeds everywhere she went.  Children (& adults!) love the rhythmic, quiet quality to the story and it is easy for them to understand setting a goal, then working towards fulfilling each goal.

I found this read-aloud video below, which I'm sure your class would love to hear/watch. Only one little gripe I have: the narrator keeps reading "lupines" as "loo-pine", when it is actually pronounced "loo-pin".  How do I know this? I used to also read "loo-pines" when reading this book aloud, when one of my very sweet second grade students said in a very confidential whisper (because she didn't want to embarrass me), "I've seen those flowers before and I think my dad said they're loo-pins." After checking the pronunciation in the dictionary, I admitted my mistake to my class! But now every time I see the word(s), I know how it should be pronounced!!
I love the story twist in the book, The Wednesday Surprise. Anna and Grandma are planning a surprise for Dad's birthday. Every week when Grandma comes to visit, she and Anna disappear into the bedroom with a big bag of books. Throughout the story, it appears as if Grandma is reading with Anna. But on Dad's birthday, he thinks he has received all his presents when Grandma stands up and gives him the best one of all: she reads aloud the stories that Anna has taught her. She had never learned to read until her granddaughter taught her! This book really conveys it is never too late to learn something new! (It makes me teary every time I read, too!)

An acronym I use with my class to teach goal setting is GOAL. After teaching each step, we put a copy of GOAL in our student portfolios. You can download a copy of this sheet here. There is a color page, or if you're like me and don't have a colored ink printer at school, there's a black & white page to be printed on colored paper!
Click on the button below to read about more books that focus on goal setting!

2 comments