Hey there!

I promised you the back-to-school activity your students won't forget, and that whole forgetting part is exactly why I created it!

For years, I had my students set thoughtful goals (or so I thought). Then October rolled around... and they'd forgotten them. We'd quickly revisit those goals before conferences and move on. January came, we'd review them again, and many students needed another reminder of what they'd even written.

At some point, I realized this just wasn't working.

That's when I started using One Word for Kids to guide my students' goal setting instead.

Rather than focusing on a list of goals they would eventually forget, students chose one meaningful word that represented the person they wanted to become. It was simple, build community during those first weeks and, most importantly, they actually remembered it months later.

I've been using this process for the past three years, and it has become one of my favorite back-to-school traditions. Even though I've shared pieces of this lesson with you before, I finally gave it the makeover it deserved! It now includes a complete five-day lesson plan with discussion activities, reflections, brainstorming pages, classroom displays, and everything else I've added and refined as I've used it with students over the last three years.

One Word for Kids

The idea is incredibly simple.

Instead of asking students to set five or six different goals, they choose one word that represents the person they want to become that year.

Maybe it's courage.

Maybe it's kindness.

Maybe it's focus, perseverance, or confidence.

That one word becomes something they can return to all year long. When they're faced with a challenge, making a tough decision, or reflecting on their progress, they simply ask themselves, "What would someone living my word do?" I've found that one meaningful word is so much easier for students (AND me) to remember than a paragraph they wrote during the first week of school.

We spend real time coming up with our word, and if we set further goals (I know some schools require it), they ALWAYS relate back to our one word. We have made friendship bracelets, keychains, and even DIY mechanical pencils to display and remind us of our words!

If you want more info, I wrote a whole blog post about how I teach this lesson and all the fun display options!

One Word Book Companion

After using this process with my own students for the past three years, I realized I had accumulated quite the collection of lessons, discussion activities, reflection pages, brainstorming exercises, and classroom displays. Every year I added something new or tweaked something that wasn't quite working.

This summer, I finally pulled everything together into one complete five-day resource so you don't have to piece it together yourself.

AND, if you already own my Moving Mountains Picture Book Companion bundle, it's been added for FREE!

​If you don't already own my Moving Mountains bundle, now is a wonderful time to grab it and get ready for the entire year!​

This book companion includes:

• Five days of lessons
• Comprehensive Slideshow to Select Words
• Interactive discussions and collaborative activities
• Brainstorming and reflection pages
• Classroom displays
• Parent communication
• Mid-year and end-of-year check-ins and rubrics
• ...and so much more!

If you're looking for a goal-setting activity your students will actually remember in October... and January... and even May, I really think you'll love this one.

I can't wait to hear what one word your students choose this year.

❤️ Mary