Setting Kids Up for Success

How nervous are you on the first day of anything? First day of school, first day of a sport, first day of a class you have not been to in over a year and a half.  Some things are familiar but still the nerves set in. The majority of Mrs. Conrad's fifth-grade gifted and talented students have been in her class for many years and know her expectations for them as leaders of JC Thompson Elementary. This year though is a little different. Times are different, and the way we have to approach our kids' learning can be different. Mrs. Conrad knew this and knew she had to set her kids up for success! 

Executive Functioning skills are needed to plan and achieve goals. Kids need to know these skills for life. Home life, school life, and even their tech life. At the beginning of the year Mrs. Conrad sets time aside to get them organized and set up for a successful year in GATES.

On day one, they were given their learning target and goals for this year.  To get them started she had them declutter their Google Drive by creating new folders, coloring folders, and archiving last year's work.

They updated their ePortfolios to reflect their 5th grade year and updated their All About Me pages. Another skill that Mrs. Conrad found useful for her kids to be successful throughout the year, is to have an email signature, so they got started. After showing several examples and talking about what needs to be in an email signature and why it is important, the kids created their own. Check out this example from one of her students.

Their next step is to write a professional email to their principal, asking her for permission to create video announcements this year for the entire school. It is the heart of the year and what students will be focused on.  Creating something like this from scratch takes a lot of planning, organization, and flexible thinking. We look forward to watching these kids' creations come to life.

All of the skills these kids are getting at the beginning of their year will set them up to be Future-Ready students for a lifetime! Organizing, Planning and Prioritizing, Task Initiation, Self-Monitoring are all being done in this classroom as expectations for a good year. We will have to check back in on them when they get their video announcements up and running and see how far these life skills are taking them! 

Setting our kids up for success is a no-brainer, but we can't forget about their digital lives as well. By setting norms and giving them time to organize, declutter, and update their digital space, the year will be on the road to success.