Grades
K - 12
25 Goals for Teachers in 2025
Take a look at these New Year's resolutions for teachers — these ideas can help make the year ahead a success for you and your students!
A new year is a great time to create goals for yourself and your students. But finding attainable goals that won’t get forgotten a few months later can be a challenge.
Here are 25 ideas and inspirations that can be used throughout the year to help you and your class achieve your goals.
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Although this one is on everyone’s list every year, being organized helps you be more efficient and reduce stress. A new year provides a great opportunity to organize your classroom in a more effective way.
Organize forms, printouts, or student files for easy access in a file organizer and store classroom library books and teaching materials in storage and organization bins. Through organization, you will be gifting yourself more time in the future — and that’s a goal every teacher can appreciate.
It’s a new year and expectations are naturally evolving for everyone. Create new classroom resolutions with your students. Engage your class by having them brainstorm ideas, discuss the suggestions, and finalize the classroom expectations for the new year.
Write and hang the classroom resolutions in class. But don’t just keep them hanging: Review the resolutions throughout the year to see how the class is accomplishing the goals it set.
Half the year has finished, and half the year is left. Now is the perfect time to assess what has been working and what has not when it comes to your teaching resolutions.
Create a plan that incorporates the effective tools you’ve used and create new plans to tackle areas that have not worked as well. Teacher Resources is a great tool to support your teaching and help you meet your goals.
Teachers know better than anyone that learning is a lifelong pursuit. Refresh and renew your skills with a wide range of professional resources written by expert educators that will not only help you sharpen your teaching toolkit but show you how to drive student achievement.
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Learning is meant to be fun! Incorporate games that can inspire students while they study the fundamentals.
Book BINGO is a great game that can encourage your students to read more. Give students a BINGO card with spaces containing different subjects and genres of books (e.g. mystery, historical, graphic novel, fiction, etc.) filled in. Leave a few blank spaces where students can add authors’ names or book titles of their choosing. When a student finishes a book, they mark the space on the BINGO card.
Once a student gets BINGO, they can be rewarded with a new book or a classroom privilege.
Collaboration is key in the classroom. Every teacher needs another for help, as a lunch buddy, as an ear to listen to, or as a resource to get new ideas. What better way to start the new year than by dedicating to help a fellow teacher?
If you’ve been teaching a while, become a mentor to a newer teacher. If you’re newer to the profession, seek out a mentor. Connect at least once a month and discuss any hurdles that you may need help clearing or strategies that worked well. Having a fellow teacher support network will work wonders for both mentor and mentee.
Create a Mystery Book Box filled with read-aloud titles. Then, without looking, select a book from the box and then share it with the students. The Mystery Box only appears a couple of times a year which helps to preserve its charm with students.
This list of read-aloud favorites has awesome titles to start any Mystery Book Box. Discover more ways to create a culture of literacy in your classroom.
Studies have consistently shown that students learn more through active learning rather than traditional lectures. Scholastic Classroom Magazines+ engages students with powerful articles, timely topics that interest them the most, and one-of-a-kind stories that capture their attention. Interactive reading tools, videos, infographics, maps, and more will support and enhance their reading experience.
By subscribing to Scholastic Classroom Magazines, your students get a years’ worth of print issue and access to our digital platform, inspiring them to read independently and continue learning beyond the classroom.
Review your classroom library. What books have been loved a little too much and may need a refreshed copy? What books have not been touched? What nonfiction subjects are students clamoring for? What reference resources do they need to help complete their educational goals?
By refreshing your library, you can introduce students to new authors and new topics helping instill a positive attitude towards reading. Discover more ways to improve the way your library works with these expert tips from Scholastic's in-house librarian.
Social media is a great resource for finding teaching ideas and inspiration. By following teachers, organizations, and companies that support educators, you’ll find a lot of professional development tools and useful ideas from your fellow education community.
Scholastic Teachers Facebook and Pinterest pages are great resources to connect to for information and inspiration.
What teacher doesn’t want to save time during the school year?A Scholastic Teachables subscription is a great tool that can save you lots of time.
With fun ready-to-go lessons, packs, and other time-saving materials, you can easily engage students in every grade and subject and at any skill level. There are more than 25,000 teacher-approved printables, differentiated collections, mini books, and skill sheets to choose from all year long.
Sign up today and get Scholastic Teachables FREE for 30 days!
Have a check-in with students for a few minutes once a month and get some honest feedback.
Students can fill out a feedback form. How are they feeling? What did they enjoy learning about this month? What would they like a future lesson to feature?
By getting consistent feedback you can help improve both you and your students’ performance.
As humans, we’re visual learners and that’s especially true for children. Add fun decorations to your classroom that also inspires education in your students.
Decorating your classroom door encourages learning from the moment your students enter your classroom. When under a time crunch or not in an especially crafty mood, there are lots of classroom décor options that brighten up a room while providing a learning experience for your students.
Self-care is key, especially after a holiday break when the second half of the school year takes off. Re-energize yourself by taking a few minutes each day to focus on yourself. Take a walk, concentrate on your breathing, sit down to eat lunch, or meditate. Taking a few minutes to do what’s best for you will help you be your best for others.
Model the kindness and compassion you’d like to see in your class. By showing a caring classroom, you can help create a caring classroom. The inspiring Bucket Filling From A to Z is a book that students can review over and over again throughout the year. While the story focuses on an invisible bucket, you can create a classroom bucket that you fill with your students’ acts of kindness throughout the year.
Take a break and get your class up and moving! Letting the energy out can help your class (and you) stay more focused for the rest of day. So, get up and jump, stomp, clap, or bounce.
Sometimes you need to mix things up to create excitement for you and your students. What better way to get students excited about a topic than by watching a video about it?
Scholastic’s Watch & Learn Library gives you instant access to more than 200 nonfiction videos for grades PreK–3 with real-world footage on engaging science, social studies, SEL, and ELA subjects that help you launch new lessons and meaningful discussions.
Need some new ideas to refresh or build up your library with titles your students will love?
Discover the handy Book Wizard that can save you lots of time — and help fill the shelves in your classroom library with expert recommendations kids won't be able to put down.
Get help from your community to raise funds to replenish or build your classroom library! With a ClassroomsCount™ campaign, you can use the funds as you raise them with no fees to spend across Scholastic. Get more books into your students' hands!
Broaden your students' literary horizons by introducing them to genres they've never tried before. Check out exciting new fiction, nonfiction, fantasy, and graphic novels among so many others. They may find new favorites they'll love to explore!
Scholastic MATH is a great way to provide more fun ways to build problem-solving skills through engaging topics and real-world math.
Inspire your students to explore their world with stories about leading figures in STEM. From marine biologists to rocket scientists, these stories will introduce fascinating new areas of study through the eyes of the people who have worked in the field. They may even be inspired to become scientists themselves!
Let your students' creativity bloom with creative writing prompts that encourage students to explore different genres while honing their writing skills.
Promote positive energy and focus in your classroom by working mindfulness into your daily routine. Creating a culture of mindfulness in the classroom is beneficial for both students and educators alike for many reasons: It can reduce stress, increase focus, build resilience-promoting skills, and create a more positive learning environment.
Achieving goals for your students and yourself is hard work. Whether it’s an afternoon coffee or tea, a yummy snack, or listening to your favorite songs or podcasts, take time out of each day to treat yourself. You’ve earned it.
Shop books and products to achieve your teaching goals below! You can find all books and activities at The Teacher Store.
Convenient and sturdy plastic bins for storing books and teaching materials help keep your classroom resources neat and organized!
Pocket chart features 10 sturdy pockets that fit letter-size folders. Perfect for organizing student files, file-folder games, forms, and other paperwork.
Students will be eager to help using this graphic jobs bulletin board set. Easy fold-and-tape format creates job pockets for easy assigning.
Promote respectful conversation in the classroom while building critical thinking skills. Cards feature conversation starters to aid in classroom discussions and help students engage in accountable talk. Includes 17 cards and one write-on/wipe-off card to customize.
Help students become world savvy with this bulletin board set that features the seven continents. Includes color-coded fact cards and photographs of animals and places that students can match with each continent, a complete world map, and an activity guide.
Teach important sight words with 25 short and playful poems! Each poem targets a key Dolch sight word and includes multiple opportunities for children to practice reading that word-helping them boost word recognition, automaticity, and fluency. Created especially for young learners, the poems feature predictable, rhyming text and supportive illustrations. Includes easy lesson routines, reproducible activities, a cloze version of every poem, and more! Children will love having their very own copies for reading the poems again and again!
Rediscover the joy of teaching with this planner that doubles as a gratitude journal. This beautiful spiral-bound organizer is thoughtfully designed with everything a busy teacher needs, plus writing prompts and inspirational quotes to help you remember and appreciate the little moments that made you fall in love with teaching.
Manage your class schedule with this modern planner interspersed with pages featuring inspirational sayings. Monthly and weekly planning pages, a student roster, and birthday and holiday pages will keep you on track throughout the year. A colorful way to stay organized and motivated.
In this sequel to Cultivating Genius, Gholdy Muhammad adds a fifth pursuit-joy-to her groundbreaking framework. Dr. Muhammad shows how joy, which is rooted in the cultural and historical realities of Black students, can enhance our efforts to cultivate identity, skills, intellect, and criticality for ALL students, giving them a powerful purpose to learn and contribute to the world.
Teachers have questions, and nobody knows that better than Melissa Loftus and Lori Sappington, hosts of the popular "Melissa & Lori Love Literacy" podcast. They have assembled the questions teachers ask them most about how children learn to read-and provided solid, evidence-based answers inspired by interviews with their expert guests. Their handy Q&A guide can be read from cover to cover, in sections, or by question, as your schedule allows.
In this no-nonsense guide, primary reading expert and classroom teacher Lindsay Kemeny shares seven ways K-3 teachers can modify what they are currently doing to transform their reading instruction.
Bucket Filling is easy, as easy as can be. You can fill a bucket all the way from A to Z. Join these happy boys and girls to see how you can make others happy and fill your bucket, too!
The silly, funny, fantastic story of a boy who didn't wash his hands and the crazy consequences that ensue as he spreads a bit of grossness around.
Frog does not want to sit on a log! But Cat tells him that's where he belongs. Doing his best to find an alternative place to sit, Frog asks Cat a whole lot of questions. For every answer Cat has, Frog has another question, until he finds out what dogs sit on! A silly read-aloud story with funny rhymes and hilarious illustrations.
A girl in a red hat finds the courage to be kind to the new student in class. Her kindness spreads, until her whole community experiences the magical shift that happens when people understand what it means to be kind, and act on their best impulses!
Dave the bear lives in the shadow of his brother, Clarence. Clarence is tall, handsome, bold, and brave. Dave...isn't. Dave wonders if he'll ever live up to his brother's example, until he finds a special talent that's all his own.
Is it time yet? This STEM-focused romp about pupation will tickle little ones who know how hard it is to wait.
