Achievement Folders

This year I wanted my students to begin tracking their growth so I created Achievement Folders! They are filled with graphs for the kiddos to track their reading fluency, Lexile and comprehension progress. It also includes goal setting sheets and a place for students to record the big ideas we discuss in 1:1 conference during reading and writing.

This will be a wonderful tool to connect parents with their student's classroom learning. he main goal with this folder is to teach kiddos to take ownership of their learning.

To set the tone for learning and the reason we come to school, I had students create a  Playdo model of a dream they had for their distant future. There were doctors, veterinarians (quite the popular career this year), movie makers, digital cartoonists, even a meteorologists and first female president! I always explain to kids that will many jobs that will be available in the future aren't even created yet! This always leaves them a bit stumbled... but this little Generation Z group will do just fine if given the right tools and student directed adventures to form and create those careers through learning.

After forming the Playdo, they drew their symbol and wrote a sentence explaining their dream. Their artwork was placed on the front of the folders. As a final culminating activity, I introduced our classroom chant that we say each morning! The kids love it and I can only hope it truly resonates with them in terms of why they are at school.