Goal striving

One of the joys in joy school is goal striving! I am really impressed with the way that little children can just decide what they would like to do and then just do it. They don't seem to see obstacles like adults often do. They say "I think I can. I think I can" and they get it done!

They started learning about goal striving on a Monday and set a personal goal on Wednesday. Christian's goal was to draw a person. He has never really been too interested in picking up a crayon or marker or pencil, let alone really drawing. So, this was a BIG goal! Honestly, the first day he didn't even know the right way to hold a pencil. Thank you, Melanie and Drea, for teaching him. These are just two of the people he tried to draw the first day.

Melanie taught Christian to put the body under the head and helped him draw a few others.Melanie made a chart for each of the kids and each time they worked on their goal they could color in a little portion of their circle. They decorated their own charts and they were very cute. Well, Christian had a good day setting his own goal and came home and got to work. This is one he tried at home. I needed to tell him about how to do each part, "What about hair?" "Should he have a neck?" "Should he have ears?" "How many fingers should he have?" Etc.We practiced again a couple days later and I couldn't believe he did this!The next week he decided to make a picture of everyone in our family. I think the pictures are so cute. Dad
Christian's self portrait- "Christian is cool like a rock star."

Victoria and Grant
Me- I love the "halo" over my head. ;) "Mom gives hugs and wears red lipgloss."

Then, after a week of joyschool at the Davidson's house learning more about order and goalstriving(Christian was sick), we had joy school here. We learned more about goals. We had a group goal to clean the kitchen. We also talked about long term goals. And guess what! Laurie, Christian, and Sam even worked on goals during free play time!

Laurie's goal was to write nice e's to finish her name. She did really well with writing neatly! I know you can't see it in this picture. Oops.

Christian drawing a person in salt.


Sam with his name on a magnadoodle. His goal was to work on his S's. He did so well that he could write Samuel by the end of the two weeks.

Well, after two weeks of practicing, Christian felt confident that he had reached his goal!

Look at the joy that accomplishing a goal brought to these children! It was awesome and made me want to do even better with my goals!

As an after note, Christian not only was proud of himself, but now likes drawing! He is trying to draw other things beside people now too. Here is one he drew in church 3 Sundays ago.

"Christian at the beach with a dolphin."

Also, this week he decided to try to write his name too! He achieved his goal in three tries. He'll still need to practice it to get it just right, but pretty good for 3 tries.

The first time he was at Drea's house for Joy school and they did bleach drawings. Melanie was there to help since they were using bleach, which is a little risky with 3 year olds. I don't know for certain since I wasn't there, but from what I heard. I am guessing that Drea or Melanie asked him to write his name and he couldn't. Melanie spelled his name out loud, C-H-R-I-S-T-I-A-N, and this is what he came up with.

He knows all of the letters and sounds, just hadn't ever written them except C. So, I guess he just thought about what they looked like in his mind. Not sure why he did it backwards, but I have seen other kids do that before too. It makes me wonder if he is supposed to be left handed. Hmm?

I told him great job and asked him to try it again later that afternoon. I never mentioned that it was backwards. This time I wrote C, then he wrote C and so on.

He did OK, but wasn't too into it. His attention span didn't last past the S. I just added the last four letters to show him what it looks like.

Then, on Thursday, Victoria was home sick and I did school here for her. So, Christian was also a student in the school. I gave her a writing assignment and needed one for him too. I told him that before he could draw a picture, he needed to write his name. He shrugged his shoulders and said, "Ok, that sounds good. I can do that." This is what he did!

He got the letters all right, except for the S which he corrected. Way to go Christian! Now I know that you can do it when you try!

I really think his progress is awesome and I think he can do whatever he puts in his mind to do.