2018 Learning Goals for Your Child
Dear Parents
This is Elsa, co-founder of onSponge.
With 2 children now in university, the idea of back-to-school is not as significant as before. Still, just a week ago, I found myself reminding both my young adults on their academic revision in view of the upcoming new term. So yes, if it is of any consolation, you are not alone in spoiling your children’s school holiday fun with assignments. And this will continue for a while but lesser as time passes.
By this time, most of you may have prepared a checklist for the right supplies in the child’s backpack. For some, this may extend to preparing your child mentally ready for school reopening by resetting the alarm to get your child used to waking up early again. If you are more involved, then a year-end exercise on setting back-to-school goals together with your child would be a good start to help frame expectations, promote self-directed learning, improve motivation and independence. Before you run off getting excited about working with your child on big goals, think child-like, think relevance and think simple.
Simple and Non-competitive Goals
Goals for your child need not be world-changing nor competitive like being the best in something or clinching the first position in the school, the class or in a subject. In fact, goals need not always be academic as well, rather just focus on your child’s personal learning goals. These could be simple goals such as waking up at a specific time to be ready for the school bus, setting a specific time limit to gaming sessions, completing homework before a specific hour of the day or filing school notes in orderly manner by a specific time. You will realise that while the goals are simple, it must be specific to direct the child towards a clear and quantifiable target that he can clearly relate to.
Recording Goals Creatively
Once the goals are set, record it. Here’s where you can make it fun and interesting. Have your child to put up the goals creatively so it can be an inspiration. Try something different like setting up a dartboard with the top 3 goals written on it and have your child to dart on it each day when he is done with the goals. Not only is it fun, with enough practices you might just end up with a champion darter.
Working Towards Goals
One of the challenges in goal setting is getting the child to be consistent and discipline in working towards them. Guiding your child to work out a plan to achieve the goals set is key and we start first by ensuring they are realistic and jointly agreed. For buy-in, have the child to work out just a 3-steps approach to achieving the goals.
To illustrate, if the goal is to improve on his model-drawing techniques, then you can guide him to work out his 3-steps approach which may be as follows:
(1) Use pencil to draw models. This makes it easier when making changes to the model as he works through each problem statement.
(2) Clear and neat model. Using the size of his index finger as a gauge, encourage your child to give enough space to label each bar to work on.
(3) Label parts of the model. Clear labeling gives big clues to help solve and minimise carelessness.
And what’s life without obstacles? Hence having your child identify the likely hurdles that will get in the way and the means that will help him overcome is important. This exercise alone is already a form of self-directed learning and independence.
Review Goals
Goals should not be cast in stones for the entire year since things do change especially with growing children. Scale the goals accordingly over time to make it more relevant as time passes and better still, with each goal achieved and transformed into a habit, reward and rework a new set of goals.
Clear learning goals are key to performing consistently well in Math. For more information on the core learning objectives that will develop the right skills for scoring in math problem sums, click here.
Finally, goal setting is a lifelong process even with grown-ups like ourselves. It applies in many aspects and the best part of working out with your child on his goals is discovering who he is, what he thinks and how he evolves.
Happy New Year
Elsa Tan
This is Elsa, co-founder of onSponge.
With 2 children now in university, the idea of back-to-school is not as significant as before. Still, just a week ago, I found myself reminding both my young adults on their academic revision in view of the upcoming new term. So yes, if it is of any consolation, you are not alone in spoiling your children’s school holiday fun with assignments. And this will continue for a while but lesser as time passes.
By this time, most of you may have prepared a checklist for the right supplies in the child’s backpack. For some, this may extend to preparing your child mentally ready for school reopening by resetting the alarm to get your child used to waking up early again. If you are more involved, then a year-end exercise on setting back-to-school goals together with your child would be a good start to help frame expectations, promote self-directed learning, improve motivation and independence. Before you run off getting excited about working with your child on big goals, think child-like, think relevance and think simple.
Simple and Non-competitive Goals
Goals for your child need not be world-changing nor competitive like being the best in something or clinching the first position in the school, the class or in a subject. In fact, goals need not always be academic as well, rather just focus on your child’s personal learning goals. These could be simple goals such as waking up at a specific time to be ready for the school bus, setting a specific time limit to gaming sessions, completing homework before a specific hour of the day or filing school notes in orderly manner by a specific time. You will realise that while the goals are simple, it must be specific to direct the child towards a clear and quantifiable target that he can clearly relate to.
Recording Goals Creatively
Once the goals are set, record it. Here’s where you can make it fun and interesting. Have your child to put up the goals creatively so it can be an inspiration. Try something different like setting up a dartboard with the top 3 goals written on it and have your child to dart on it each day when he is done with the goals. Not only is it fun, with enough practices you might just end up with a champion darter.
Working Towards Goals
One of the challenges in goal setting is getting the child to be consistent and discipline in working towards them. Guiding your child to work out a plan to achieve the goals set is key and we start first by ensuring they are realistic and jointly agreed. For buy-in, have the child to work out just a 3-steps approach to achieving the goals.
To illustrate, if the goal is to improve on his model-drawing techniques, then you can guide him to work out his 3-steps approach which may be as follows:
(1) Use pencil to draw models. This makes it easier when making changes to the model as he works through each problem statement.
(2) Clear and neat model. Using the size of his index finger as a gauge, encourage your child to give enough space to label each bar to work on.
(3) Label parts of the model. Clear labeling gives big clues to help solve and minimise carelessness.
And what’s life without obstacles? Hence having your child identify the likely hurdles that will get in the way and the means that will help him overcome is important. This exercise alone is already a form of self-directed learning and independence.
Review Goals
Goals should not be cast in stones for the entire year since things do change especially with growing children. Scale the goals accordingly over time to make it more relevant as time passes and better still, with each goal achieved and transformed into a habit, reward and rework a new set of goals.
Clear learning goals are key to performing consistently well in Math. For more information on the core learning objectives that will develop the right skills for scoring in math problem sums, click here.
Finally, goal setting is a lifelong process even with grown-ups like ourselves. It applies in many aspects and the best part of working out with your child on his goals is discovering who he is, what he thinks and how he evolves.
Happy New Year
Elsa Tan