In the final sessions prior to the winter school holiday break, I often like to ask a handful of my school-based clients to reflect on the term they’ve had and what they’re looking forward to about the holidays and term to come. It’s a great way to round out the term and informally assess clients skills in targeted areas. For example, I can see that a particular client has chosen to ‘upgrade’ his vocabulary choices when selecting words to describe the term, or that they’ve used conjunctions to formulate complex sentences in response to a given question. Here is a sample of responses I collected today:

Words to describe Term 2 for you: slow, unenjoyable, weird, fun, hard, unknown

Tell about one thing you enjoyed about school at home: Doing school work at my own pace, not having to worry about getting ready for school, waking up later, getting help from my teacher’s when I needed it

Tell me one thing you enjoyed about coming back to school: Seeing friends (This was the universal answer!)

What are you most looking forward to these holidays? Staying home and playing video games, being at home, doing nothing, sleeping in , seeing friends, drinking Coke!

I was unsurprised by the range of words used to describe the term. My own experience spanned the spectrum from ‘hard and slow’ to ‘fun and weird’ (and often in a single day!).

If you haven’t already, consider asking your own kids to reflect on their term. It could be a simple conversation in the car or around the dinner table. The best way to start is with a ‘What three words would you use describe …….’ and go from there.

If there’s time and motivation for daily writing over the holidays, you’ll find 300 writing prompts from Think Written a terrific resource.