Today’s activity is all about the “M” in “SMART” goals: Measurable. (See yesterday's activity for the "S.")
One of my "specific" goals to be healthier this year is to learn to tap dance. I figured it would be a way to make exercise even more enjoyable. But “learn tap” doesn’t serve as a great goal because it’s hard to define what success looks like for something that vague. To make it measurable, I decided that I want to be able to perform five tap dances. Knowing what my end goal is helps me identify how to structure my workouts.
Today’s activity is intended to help your family see how making a goal measurable can increase the likelihood of success. And it’s all about building towers.
Start by putting out a few card sets and giving them the invitation to “Try to make the best tower.” They’ll likely start using the cards to build the tallest tower they can. Or maybe others will try to create the largest base and build from there. Either way, everyone will probably soon realize that building a card tower is hard. But the invitation for the activity never said they had to create the tower from cards—the cards were simply the resource that was most readily available. So now invite them to use any materials they want and extend some different invitations, such as:
• Build a tower that can hold a book or a favorite toy.
• Build a tower that a paper towel roll can fit inside.
• Build a tower that has three floors and is at least 1.5 feet tall.
As soon as your family knows how to measure the success of a tower (to hold a book, to surround an object, etc.), then they can decide what design and materials will be best to build their structure.
Of course, that all leads to a quick conversation about how making sure our goals have a “measurable” element.
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