Student Motivation is getting more tricky this time of year.
Today I'm linking up with Joanne to share what been working lately.
Tickets
A while back I mentioned doing tickets for my class. I have always done tickets - usually they act just like money, the kids are rewarded for outstanding behavior, or for trying their best, etc...on the flip side the tickets earned could be traded in for prizes. It has always worked.
Then this year my clever 13th year of teaching children decided to have ticket wars - they decided to combine their tickets with each other to see what group of kids could get the most. It would have been a great math game, but as for motivation it was severely lacking - since the kids that hardly ever got tickets started bullying the kids for more tickets to be part of the group, friends, etc...
So I pulled the tickets - all the tickets in the entire classroom - for about 3 weeks. Then I couldn't handle it anymore. I needed my tickets, and the kids needed to be individually rewarded. This was right before testing, so we were in the midst of major test prep.
I decided to do a raffle with it instead. The kids were back to getting tickets, but instead of trading them in for prizes they wrote their name on the back and they were put into a basket. During test prep and testing I would choose 3 names every afternoon for some random prizes in the classroom - the most coveted being a homework pass.
Even though I still miss the trading station, I also enjoy NOT having to remember to fit it in on a Friday afternoon. I enjoy now changing it up and rolling a dice to determine the amount of names I choose every afternoon. I enjoy the kids knowing that if they try really hard their names will still be on all those tickets in the basket from the past days.
Next year I'm thinking of keeping the raffle instead of going back to trading. I'm thinking of every month starting fresh - just like the team points.
These kids have taught me a lot this year!
FYI - in case you didn't hear about it yesterday...
Hope you have a great day - we are in the midst of full on potty training...
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