After School Curriculum
Personal Goal Setting
Objectives
1. Students will understand how to define motivation and goal.
2. Students will understand how to reach a goal by breaking it down into smaller
steps or parts.
3. Students will understand that making a contract is a good way to hold themselves
accountable for reaching their goals.
Materials needed for this lesson
1. Building blocks or any other stackable objects that are not interlocking. Any
mixture of sizes will work.
2. Masking tape
3. A small “prize” for the winning group in Activity 1
Background information and notes
Setting a goal is an important life skill. When a person sets a goal, it is even more
important that they take steps toward accomplishing their goal. Many people set goals
that are unreachable. They become frustrated and quit before the goal has been met. This
lesson is intended to show kids how to make an attainable goal for themselves and how to
track progress toward its accomplishment.
© 2004-2007 The Keren Emrich Foundation DBA Road of Life, www.roadoflife.org
After School Curriculum
Presenting the Lesson
Students should be given the opportunity to define the term goal in their own words.
They should also brainstorm sample goals (e.g. Spend more time with family members,
do something nice for someone each week, walk to school instead of getting a ride, etc.)
Some goals are harder to reach than others. An example is as follows:
•More difficult: raising my math grade from a C to a B
•Easier: helping my mom around the house more
A good goal is very specific. For example, students should say “raise my grade from a C
to a B” rather than “get better grades”. When students are working toward a difficult
goal, it is important that they learn to take small steps toward achieving something big.
Have your students imagine taking a road trip without a map or winning a basketball
championship without a game strategy. To further emphasize this point, do the following
exercise.
© 2004-2007 The Keren Emrich Foundation DBA Road of Life, www.roadoflife.org
After School Curriculum
Learning Activity: Moving Forward
Explanation of the activity:
This activity teaches the students about importance of motivation when reaching a goal.
Preparation:
You will need building blocks or any other stackable objects that are not interlocking.
(Any mixture of sizes will work). You will also need masking tape.
Directions:
1. Divide the students up into groups and spread the groups out in the classroom.
2. Give each group a set of 10 to 20 stackable objects.
3. Tell the students to build something with their objects. It must be free-standing.
They cannot use anything to hold the objects together.
4. When each group has completed a structure, go around and place a piece of
masking tape a few feet in front of each structure.
5. Tell the students that their goal is to move the structure across the line of tape, but
only one person can be touching it at a time. When the structure is moved across
the line, it should look the same as when the students created it.
6. The group that finishes the fastest will get a prize.
•After the students have completed the exercise, have a class discussion about the
following:
•Did anyone try moving the whole structure at once? If so, what happened?
The students are most likely to say that the structure fell over or they weren’t able
to move it with just one person holding on to it.
•How did you succeed in moving your structure?
The students are supposed to have figured out that they could move the structure
by breaking it into smaller pieces and then rebuilding the structure on the other side of
the line.
•Begin to discuss motivation with the students. Have them define motivation in their own
words. Motivation is how interested and excited you are about reaching your goal. It is
also a driving force that encourages you to continue working on a goal. Explain that
sometimes it is hard to stay motivated when trying to reach your goals. To stay
motivated, it can sometimes help to set rewards for yourself at each step that you
complete. When you have completed a step and you are able to move on to the next step,
you can reward yourself with a new book, a CD, a new shirt, etc. This may help to keep
you motivated to reach your goal.
•Break down the following goals as an example:
•Eat five fruits and vegetables a day.
1. Eat fruit with breakfast every day.
2. Have a fruit or vegetable as a snack every day after school.
3. Eat a salad or side vegetables with dinner.
4. Pack fruits and veggies in your lunch bag.
© 2004-2007 The Keren Emrich Foundation DBA Road of Life, www.roadoflife.org
After School Curriculum
•Do 50 push-ups a day
1. Do 10 push-ups every morning for a week.
2. Try to increase the number of push-ups by 5 per week.
3. Do 10 push-ups after school every day for a week.
4. Try to increase the number of push-ups you do by five a week until
you have reached fifty.
© 2004-2007 The Keren Emrich Foundation DBA Road of Life, www.roadoflife.org
After School Curriculum
Learning Activity: Personal Contract
Explanation of the activity:
This activity, writing a personal contract, will help the students hold themselves
accountable when trying to reach a goal. After the lesson, students should fully
understand how to make a personal goal and break the goal down into smaller steps.
Directions:
1. Have the students fill out the personal contract, which is documentation that they
have made a goal for themselves and that they are going to work hard to accomplish it.
2. Review each student’s goal. Make sure that the goal is attainable. Likewise, make sure
that each student’s goal is challenging.
3. It is also important to make sure that the students’ goals are positive, no one should
have a goal of losing weight or anything else that would be considered negative. If a
student does have a goal that is negative, work with them to redefine their goal to make it
positive, or completely change the goal. Here is an example:
Goal: To lose ten pounds
Revised Goal: to begin eating a balanced diet and walking my dog every day to get more
exercise.
© 2004-2007 The Keren Emrich Foundation DBA Road of Life, www.roadoflife.org
After School Curriculum
Personal Contract
I, ____________________________, have decided to reach a personal goal.
My goal is:
To reach my goal, I will break it into smaller steps. (Note: All goals may not require
10 steps) These steps are:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
The reward for reaching each smaller step will be:
The reward for reaching my goal will be:
I have set a goal that is possible for me to reach. I promise to work hard and keep track
of my progress toward this goal.
___________________________________
Signature
__________________
Date
© 2004-2007 The Keren Emrich Foundation DBA Road of Life, www.roadoflife.org
After School Curriculum
Goal Tracking Worksheet
Name:
Goal:
STEP
DATE
STARTED
DATE
ACCOMPLISHED
REWARD
© 2004-2007 The Keren Emrich Foundation DBA Road of Life, www.roadoflife.org