Engaging Reflection & Goal Setting Activity

I got this idea from an excellent 'reach for the stars' activity I saw on Pinterest during the school holidays and adapted it for my students and for my own purpose. 

Firstly I quickly reviewed last terms Mathematics lessons and prompted them to think about their work ethic, homework, active questioning, book work, listening skills, behaviour and so on. I then asked them to think about four goals they could reach this term (not nearly impossibly goals)! 

After students had 1.5 minutes of reflection/ goal setting time. I then showed students my hand that I created with my own goals (I wish I had taken a picture of mine)! My name was on my thumb and on each of the fingers I wrote my own goals for the classroom and shared them with the class. 

Here are a few of my year 8 and 9 students goals for the term. 

This is what it looked like after my year 8 class completed this goal setting activity. So far each lesson I have reflected on the goals they made and encouraged them to always work towards reaching their goals.

I would love to hear ways in which YOU all focus on individual student goals and how do you track them?

P.S. - I told my students that during parent teacher interviews I will be bringing their hands with me so their parents can see the great goals their child has made! :)

Math Classroom organisation & decoration

As I said in my last post, I went into school on the Sunday before school started back.
Now this cupboard looked terrible with NOTHING in it but textbooks.

One teacher has the top shelf (because she only wants textbooks), so I took over the rest.

I have my year 9 textbooks (over 2 classes), then coloured paper, pencils, pens (50 pens for $2.60 Faber Castle too!), Math centre activities, rulers, reward container and reward certificates! I couldn't ask for a better space now!

Last year I had a problem with leaving pens/ pencils and other equipment out for other student access in a Math Centre set-up because other teachers didn't actively supervise and I ended up with NO rulers, NO pens and NO equipment, so this is padlocked and open every lesson I'm in there! :)

We also moved it more into the corner so there was more open space around the teacher desk! :) I put up my puff decorations (the pastels at the front and the bright ones at the back). I will dedicated a single blog post to creating these VERY soon! :)

On the trolley I have saved the old Year 8 textbooks that were going to be binned because of ACARA (Still VERY useful!!!!). I also found some of my posters from when I had year 6 and added them to the room to bring the class together as one even more.

You should have seen how bland and naked the back of this room looked before I took over! I've added my Math Word Wall - 43 Other words for addition, subtraction, multiplication, division and equals which I colour coordinated for students easy comparison.

I also completed a fun reflection and goal setting task with my juniors which they LOVED! Some lovely pictures to come tomorrow night! :)