The Planning Quilt

This week during our character education time, my partner teacher introduced an activity to the students that captured my attention. It's a way of articulating your plans or goals for the future in the form of a quilt. Using colored paper squares, she had them start with the center of the "quilt."

"What are your goals for the next two weeks, before school ends for the year?"she began. That square gets glued in the center of the page. Four contrasting color squares go around the first square, connection at the corners. These are four summer goals. Four more squares of the first color can fit in the spaces and contain goals for next school year.

This is similar to the paper quilt

I started thinking about what my quilt would contain. I would have a jammed-packed center square for everything in the next two weeks - grading papers, finishing projects, doing report cards, and fitting in those fun end-of-year things that kids love - the extra recess, the movie, an artsy project. 

For my summer squares, I would have one devoted to writing every day. One would have to be house projects, as we had a little flood in the lower-level family room and now need a new floor, sump pump, and, not related to the flood, furnace. I never spend enough time outside in our brief Chicago summer, so maybe that would be the third square. The fourth would be reading - biographies, novels, nonfiction... 

Plans for next year will have to wait. Summer is upon us to be embraced.