New Year’s Resolutions. Whether you do them or not, I don’t know anyone who doesn’t celebrate New Year’s Eve without reflecting on their year or their life.  January is often a time of self-reflection, a time in which one contemplates, reflects, and makes goals to make this NEW year better than the previous.

When we came back from winter vacation, my second graders mentioned New Year’s Resolutions as a thing adults “do.” Then we talked about bad habits and good habits.  Kids knew right away what a habit is, and what they thought were bad habits.  I never realized how much candy and junk food some of these little kiddos eat! As a little experiment, I thought it would be fun to try to modify our own habits. Plus, I wanted to find out what bad habits my kids have.

We read the book, Superkid, by Claire Freedman, in which a kid does the wrong thing, and then does the right thing.

Then students filled out a short form indicating a bad habit and how they will work to change it until the end of February. We focused on how to draw a person, how to draw the buildings in the background, and how to paint using the right tools.  The main thing I wanted them to do was to link their goal somewhere in their artwork; to turn their goal into a visual representation. Here are the results. 

I will be a SUPERKID this month by playing outside with my best friend.

I will not watch t.v. after school.

I will be a SUPERKID this month by not fighting with my brother and

being kind to him instead. 

I will be a SUPERKID this month by listening more to my mom and dad. 

I will be a SUPERKID this month by not going to my computer.  Instead, I will draw. 

The finished projects are really interesting and cute reminders for us all.  Students got a chance to reflect on their behavior and find a way to turn a “bad” behavior into a healthy one.