Week 12 Story

Note to parents: These weekly stories are intended to be an additional resource as we work together to support the development of your child. These stories will align with the “theme of the week” for our upcoming class. In Week 12, our theme is “I have BIG goals!". The purpose of this theme is to provide children an opportunity to talk about some of the big dreams or goals they have for themselves and teach them the tools they need to start pursing those goals.

How to use these stories: When your child joined Legacy Kids, they were given a “stuffy”. These weekly stories will feature their “stuffy”. Encourage your child to have their stuffy with them while you read the story together and discuss the questions below. This process of externalizing the story to someone else (their stuffy) can be helpful as they internalize the principles discussed. Whenever you see "[stuffy]" in the story simply insert the name of your child's stuffy.

Week 12 Story:

[Stuffy] Has BIG Goals!

Once upon a time there was a stuffy named [Stuffy].

[Stuffy] was working on [his/her] Legacy Journal and was having a hard time deciding what goals [he/she] wanted to set that week. [Stuffy] knew [he/she] needed some help, so [he/she] decided to ask [his/her] Mom.

"Oh MOOOOOooooOOOOooooMmmmmy, I need your help!".

[Stuffy's] Mom came into the room and said, "Oh [Stuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuufffyyyy], I'm here to help!".

[Stuffy] said, "Mom, I'm trying to decide my goals for Legacy Kids this week but I'm not sure how to pick good ones. Can you help me?".

"Absolutely, [Stuffy]! When I'm setting goals, I try to make what I call "SMART" goals. Have you ever heard of SMART goals before?".

"Never ever," [Stuffy] replied, "how does it work?".

[Stuffy's] Mom pulled out a piece of paper and a marker and handed them to [Stuffy]. Then she said, "okay [Stuffy], each letter in the word "smart" is going to teach us something about how to set a goal. Let's start by spelling the word "smart"."

[Stuffy] took the piece of paper and the marker and spelled "S" "M" "A" "R" "T".

[Stuffy's] Mom said,"Great [Stuffy]! Now let's talk about each of these letters. What is something you wanted to do for one of your goals?".

[Stuffy] replied, "Well I love when you bake yummy treats and I was wanting to learn how to bake something too!".

"Great idea [Stuffy], let's use baking to talk about SMART goals!".

Note to Parents: You can pull out a piece of paper and use it to show what [Stuffy] and [his/her] Mom are discussing.

[Stuffy's] Mom started by saying, "the S in SMART stands for SPECIFIC. That means your goal is clear and you know exactly what you're going to do. So if you know you want to bake, you can get specific and say "I want to learn to bake chocolate-chip cookies".

"Oooooh yes!," [Stuffy] said, "I loooooooooooove chocolate-chip cookies!".

[Stuffy's] Mom said, "Great! Now let's talk about the M. The M in SMART stands for MEASURABLE. This means that we know how much we want to do for our goal. So you could say "I want to learn to bake enough chocolate-chip cookies for everyone in the family to have one. How does that sound?".

[Stuffy] thought for a second, "could we maybe make enough for everyone to have two cookies?".

[Stuffy's] Mom smiled and said, "I think that's a great idea! Okay, let's talk about the A. The A in SMART stands for ACHIEVABLE. This means that our goal is hard enough that it gives us a challenge but it isn't too hard. So [Stuffy], do you think baking 1,000 cookies by tomorrow would be a good goal?".

[Stuffy] thought about it and said, "Hmm, I would love to eat 1,000 cookies, but that probably would be too much to do by tomorrow".

[Stuffy's] Mom continued, "I agree. So always remember that your goal should give you a challenge but not be so hard that you can't do it. Okay, so now let's talk about R. The R in SMART stands for RELEVANT. That means it is something important to you or something you are needing to work on right now. That's the great thing about these goals for Legacy Kids, you get to pick ones that are important to you!".

"Now the last letter is T. The T stands for TIME-BOUND. That means instead of saying "I'll do that goal someday", you choose when you want to have it done by. So when you do think you'd like to learn to bake these cookies?".

[Stuffy] thought about it and asked, "Can we do Sunday? We usually have some extra time and we could bake the cookies together then!".

"That sounds great, [Stuffy]!", [Stuffy's] Mom replied, "I'm so excited to bake cookies with you!".

And that's the end of the story.

Discussion Questions

How would you describe SMART goals to a friend?
Think about a goal that you want to set for Legacy Kids. Does this goal fit as a SMART goal? Are there any changes you want to make to that goal?