Teach children to conceptualize long-term goal-setting by creating a movie or presentation about their goals. Take a picture of each child and upload the pictures onto a computer. Ask your kindergarteners to think about what they would like to improve or learn during the school year. Encourage them to think of attainable goals that you can help them achieve. Using a voice-recording program, record each child’s answer. Put together the recorded answers along with each child’s picture to create a media presentation. Alternately, you can videotape child giving his goals for the school year. At the end of the year, watch the movie with your class. Your students’ faces will light up when they realize they achieved their goals.
Talk to your kindergarten students about the difference between short- and long-term goals. Prior to class, prepare a goal folder for each child to teach them how to set and achieve their goals. Make three pockets slightly larger than index cards in each folder. Label one pocket “short-term,” one pocket “long-term” and the last pocket “Done.” Give the children the goal folders along with index cards. Have them write or draw pictures of short-term and long-term goals on the cards. Help the children separate the easily attained goals into the “short-term” pocket and the tasks that will take longer into the “long-term” pocket. Take out the folders once a month to move the cards over to the “done” pocket as the children achieve their goals.
Ask your kindergarteners what they would like to do or learn. Guide the children to choose goals they can achieve in the classroom, such as learning to read, counting to 100 or learning to skip. Create a poster that can be hung up in the classroom to act as a visual reminder for your students. Make goal strips to glue on the poster. Give each child strips of construction paper to write their goals. Alternatively, you can use larger pieces of paper for children to draw their goals on. Students can refer to their goals several times daily.
Money is a powerful motivator for young children and it provides an opportunity to teach goal-setting. Set up a “bank” and play the role of the banker. Offer the children paper money for completed assignments and responsible behavior. Reward acts of kindness or extra effort with the paper money as well. Allow the children to visit your classroom store once a month. Set out small prizes along with larger, more exciting prizes. The children can choose to buy the smaller prizes or save their money for larger ones. Have each child write down a goal for how much classroom money they need to save up. Each week have the children check how much closer they are getting to reaching their goal. The positive reinforcement the children get from meeting their goals will encourage them to set other goals.