Classroom rewards are 100% necessary in our classroom. I know we want to teach children with intrinsic motivation to do the right thing and work hard on their own. However, even I need a sweet treat or a little retail therapy as a reward for a long day of work. So, why should I withhold that from the kiddos in my classroom?
Dollars, Dojos, Stickers, Galore!
There are a million different ways to work out a reward system in your classroom, and I've tried tons of them.
My first year teaching I tried the regular classroom dollars. I copied them, laminated them, and cut them out for my kids to use. I taught 1st, and it worked perfectly fine. Well, except for the fact that on Fridays I would sometimes forget to open up our treasure chest shop. Sometimes my kids would bring them into the bathroom with them and bring them back...wet. GROSS. They would also pile up in their seat sacks or be brought home accidentally.
I switched to sight word dollars the next year. I really loved these in first grade. My kiddos had to read the word on the dollar to spend them in the treasure chest. It really helped a lot of my kids learn more words than even they thought they could learn. And, you better believe they were phoning every friend about an unknown word on a dollar and practicing it over and over when shopping day came around. If you teach first and you're interested in trying them out, I have a free set here. Or, you can buy the complete set here.
But, I still had the same problem as before. Dollars made their own trips to the bathroom, went missing, or started piling up on busy Fridays.
The next year, I moved to second grade so sight word memorization wasn't as important as first grade. I switched to stickers then - mainly because it was so easy. I gave my kids index cards and they stuck a sticker to it as rewards. I stuck the stickers on their clips at the end of the day if they moved up (1 sticker for first move, 2 stickers for two moves, 3 stickers for three moves). It worked better because they made less trips to the bathroom and less trips home. The cards fit nicely in their pencil boxes so no cards went missing. But, we still had the same spending issue. Fridays got busy, and we'd forget to open up our classroom store. Stickers would pile up on their cards. Blah, blah, blah.
So, I went back to brainstorming. First, I found these amazing coupons from Proud to be Primary and this QR Code Prize pack from Teach Create Motivate. I love these because my class wasn't so reliant on the treasure chest and me bringing it out every Friday. I can rotate in things like bring a cuddly friend, have lunch with a friend, extra tech time, etc. I keep them all in my coupon tub for easy access.
But, I was still left with the awkward way to spend these dollars. I started using Class Dojo at this time so I knew I could just use Dojo points as dollars, but I needed some way to let my kids spend them. I knew I didn't want to prep dollars. I knew I wanted to make it easy for my kids to spend.
This is when I started brainstorming a
Dojo Credit Card.
How does it work?
It took me a little while to get this idea figured out. But, now that I have all the kinks worked out - I absolutely love it. My kids each have a credit card with their name on it. On the back, I put a QR code for my kids to scan. When they scan it with an iPad, it shows each of them their current balance in their account.
But the real magic is that I can automatically update their accounts from my computer. This is how I saved myself all the headache of printing, laminating, and cutting hundreds of dollars.
When my kiddos scan their cards, it shows them a balance just like this.
It looks like this on my end. So it's super easy for me to go into each one of their accounts to change their amounts. I update their account every Friday with their weekly Dojo points. It also allows me to fine them (messy desks, missing dry erase markers, etc) or reward them (clean desks, classroom game winners, etc) extra dollars instead of linking everything to behavior.
I also have my kids write their own receipts for spending dollars. They write down all the items they want to buy with the prices. They have to do all the math and leave it on my table. I simply check the math and leave the rewards on their desk the next morning. My kids know they have to wait until the afternoon, and I will leave all their rewards on their table. If the math is wrong or if they don't have enough money, I'll just put it back on their table with a note about it. Interested in trying this out in your own classroom? Leave me a comment or message me on Instagram.
Easy peasey lemon squeezy.
Hi! I am interested in using this in my own classroom, but the instagram link isn't working!
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