Are you wondering what kind of New Year’s resolutions activity you should do with students? Well that’s why I’m here! As I’m writing this, the year is ending in a few weeks’ time. I feel like it has flown by! However, it has not been easy to say the least. I feel like a lot of my students are still struggling to be in the classroom, and they need to so much guidance on how to be students. But I know it will be okay in the end..
I’m already thinking about my lessons for January, because I feel like it, not because I have to. But the start of the new year is always a good time to reflect on the old and look ahead towards the new. Goal setting is part of that, and I think my students should reflect and set goals as well. Below is what I’ve come up with regarding lessons about New Year’s resolutions!
Want a freebie before you read on? Grab this set of exercises about New Year’s resolutions from my TPT Store by clicking here!
Activities your students will love
Below I’ve written down the New Year’s resolutions activity ideas I have for the four language skills: reading, listening, speaking and writing. There are texts and videos I love that teach students about resolutions, and activities you can do with your students. Check them out!
Reading and listening activities for New Year’s resolutions
Get students to read about New Year’s resolutions. What are they? How did they come to be part of our culture? I love this text from Learn English Teens about celebrating New Year’s Eve in the UK. It also contains worksheets to help students understand. This text from History about the history of New Year’s Eve and traditions is very cool too. Make your own questions about it, or ask students to summarize what they’ve learned.
Also get students to watch videos or listen to audio about New Year’s resolutions. I love this video and its exercises from Learn English Teens. This video by History is cool too, as well as the one by Global News! You can always ask them to answer the 5W and H questions: who, what, where, when, why and how. Or ask them to summarize what they learned in words, or, more interestingly: ask them to draw a picture or storyboard of it.
New Year’s resolutions activities for the classroom : Speaking
What New year’s resolutions do your students have? Or their parents? Which one do you have? It’s good to make it specific for them what real people set as their goals for self-improvement. Then get them to talk about it together. What categories of goals exist (family, friends, health, school, job) and what are examples within those categories (calling my friends more, eating less sugar)? Get them to talk about each in a meaningful way in which every student must contribute their thoughts. I feel small groups work best for that. And then at the end maybe have them vote for a class New Year’s resolution?
Another activity would be to have students draw themselves at the end of the new year. Where do they stand? How will they have changed? What goals have they achieved? And how can they illustrate this in a drawing? Talk about it with them or have them add text to practice their writing!
New Year’s resolutions writing activities
Get students to set goals for the new year! What would they like to improve, or do more of, and what do they want to do less of or what habit will they get rid of? Ask them to answer these questions in their journal, or supply pages for them to write on.
For my classes, I have made a New Year’s Resolutions exercise booklet with 9 exercises to cover this topic. They will watch a video about a 30 day challenge, they’ll read a text about it, they’ll speak about it, and eventually they’ll create and execute their own 5 day challenge with the goal of self-improvement in the new year! It’s always super fun, challenging and engaging, and I can’t wait to do it again this year with my kiddos! Check out my New Year’s resolutions worksheet here!
Or check out this freebie that I made, if it turns out I have less time with my students.. This is also a great New Year’s resolutions activity! I hope this post gave you some inspiration to teach your students about New Year’s resolutions! I wish you a wonderful year!
Or try a fun flip book!
I also created a fun flip book for my younger students! It’s also about categories of goals, and it helps them think about their resolutions. And also about being a better person in the new year! My students love that they can flip the pages as well, so there’s that too 🙂 In addition, it’s a great piece of work that students can show off at home!
Need some ideas for you winter-themed lessons? Check out this article:
5 cool winter lesson ideas for the ESL classroom
