Simple & Free: New Year’s Resolution Activity for Kindergarten

Looking for a simple New Year’s resolution activity to use in your kindergarten or first-grade classroom after the holiday break? This free writing template pairs perfectly with a New Year read-aloud (like Squirrel’s New Year’s Resolution or Carter and the New Year’s Resolution). Read on to learn more (and to access the subscriber freebie)!

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Start with a Story

A New Year’s resolution read-aloud is a great way to build background knowledge and put this writing activity into context. Squirrel’s New Year’s Resolution by Pat Miller (illustrated by Kristi Ember) is perfect for this purpose. As they listen, your students will learn about New Year’s resolutions right alongside the main character. I love that this New Year’s read-aloud also has a theme of kindness and friendship—perfect for resetting classroom community expectations! This is a lovely picture book to add to your classroom library, but if you don’t have time to access it, you can watch a read-aloud video on YouTube.

Another New Year’s resolution picture book option is Carter and the New Year’s Resolutionby Roni Legg (illustrated by Dima Eichhorn). This one centers on a classroom of forest creatures upon their return to school. The students in the animal classroom learn all about resolutions and their purpose as they brainstorm their own ideas. This story works well for helping your students think of their own promises to themselves (and your kids will probably notice similarities between the fictional classroom and their own)!

Brainstorm New Year’s Resolution Ideas

After reading, have a brainstorming session. Letting students discuss their ideas helps them integrate new vocabulary and process new concepts. Consider making a shared writing chart with the heading “This year, I will…” and listing the students’ ideas below. Working together to encode tricky words provides useful scaffolding. Having students “turn and talk” using the same sentence stem before they begin their own writing is helpful, as well!

Time to Write!

I’ve added a few versions of a New Year’s resolution writing template to the My Happy Place Free Resource Library. If you are already a newsletter subscriber, you can log in to grab it now. If you haven’t subscribed yet, you can do so now (it should be quick and easy)! Take a look at the different line styles and choose the page that will work best for your students.

If you’ve ended your brainstorming session with a “turn and talk” opportunity, it may be easiest for students to start writing their resolutions right away. Once they’ve got their sentence encoded to the best of their abilities, they can draw a picture showing what their New Year’s resolution will look like. The drawing process may naturally lead into additional sentences with more detail (if that’s what your writers are ready for). For example, a child might write, “This year, I will try to keep my room clean.” Then they might draw a picture of their toys on a shelf. They could follow their drawing process with an additional sentence, “I will keep my toys on the shelf.”

Allow Time for Sharing

Be sure to give students an opportunity to share their work and their resolutions with their peers! As they share, they can talk about the steps they will follow to make sure they keep their new promises. Talking about New Year’s resolutions with each other gives your students the opportunity to support and encourage each other throughout the coming months. 💕

I hope you find this classroom New Year’s resolution activity helpful as you head into the coming semester!