Our school is in need of ideas for our end-of-the-month reward for the children that have shown that they can Be Safe, Be Responsible, and Be Respectful.
If you use this system at your school, do you have an end-of-the-month reward, and if so could you share some of your ideas?
We are lucky enough to have a very generous frozen yougurt place in town that donated several $5 gift cards. This is what we hand out. Healthy, yet fun! : )
I am guessing you are following the PBIS model for behavior support? For grade levels that have the fewest discipline referrals we have a popcorn day, movie day or give all students a special token of some kind.
School wide we give students a tiger paw every time they show one of the "BE"s and have a drawing each week for prizes. The teacher who gave the tiger paw gets rewarded too!
When I taught third grade we had a Friday Reward each week for students who had not gotten into trouble during the week. Some of our activities were:
Extra Recess
Movie and a Snack
Art Day
Game Day ( we let kids bring board games from home)
Book and a Buddy (we let kids bring sleeping bags, stuffed animals, and their favorite book / magazine and read with a friend)
Our school has some sort of agreement with a local restaurant. Each month we chose a grade level and of that grade level, each teacher gets to pick 5 students who consistently show their panther pride (our rules) to go to the restaurant
Our students eat in the gym, so I use lunch in the classroom w/ me as a reward. I keep it to small groups at a time so they can sit where they want and enjoy themselves. It is also a good way for me to get to know them.
Last year our school did "Hardwork Cafe" At the end of every month we rewarded students who had done an outstanding job that month. We divided our staff into groups and each group was responsible for planning and supervising the activity for that month. some of the months I can remember:
Hawaiian Luau-We had pineapple bowling, taught the kids to hula, hula hoop contests, fruit kabobs as snack, gave away lais, etc.
Baseball-played wiffleball, had hotdogs and popcorn, the mascot from our local team came, we raffled off tickets to our local baseball team (they donated them),
Boardgames-The gym was set up as stations and the kids could pick the games they wanted to wanted
Movies-We had a movie for primary and a movie for intermediate. We showed them using a projection on the gym wall.
Dance party-We taught them the chicken dance, hokey pokey, cha cha slide etc.
Teacher talent-the teachers put on a talent show for the kids
There are 7 first grade classrooms at my school. My team and I were so desperate at the behavior our students were displaying that we armed ourselves with the following idea. Every Friday at the last 30 minutes of school, the teacher in charged would come by each classroom showing all the goodies she had for a reward party, things like pop corn, drinks, chocolate, cookies, ice cream, cup cakes movies. We would walk by each classroom, picking up the kids that had showed good behavior during the week. We had a lot of kids crying because they thought it was unfair that they didn’t get to go. This idea worked well for a while. It can get expensive, but we were desperate. Now I have a box full of goodies that I bought at the .99 cent store. I have their names on the board and I add a check mark every time they break a rule. Every check mark is worth 2 min. recess time and no lunch with the teacher on Friday. This is working very well.
The last 30 minutes of the last Friday of the month students that have not missed more than 2 days of school, have not forgotten their homework more than 2 times and have not turned their card more than 5 times in the month get to go to the cafeteria for a "party"... The parties were different each time... sundaes, cookies & hot chocolate, popcorn... The kids loved it and were heart broken when they were knocked out of the party . Plus it's an inexpensive way to reward them!
During my morning meetings, I would ask my class to come up with a "goal of the day" for a running chart we kept. The idea was to get as many choices as we could, eliminate the unrealistic or repetitive ones, and then vote. (I wouldn't put up anything that was completely unacceptable to me.)
The results with my 4th grade class were very interesting. At first the "class goals" were mostly food related - have a pizza party, have an ice cream party, have candy at school, that sort of thing. We also had ideas like "movie and popcorn", "no homework for a weekend", and "free dress day" (we have school uniforms). But my favorites, and the ones that the kids eventually chose for our "reward" days, were the most active. Playing volleyball against the teachers, bowling tournament in the hallway, kids taking turns teaching their favorite board games or card games to the class.
With my class it was especially important to have a long list because so many kids had specific food preferences (only powdered donuts, pizza with no cheese, certain flavors of ice cream only) and it would have been difficult to find one favorite food that they could all enjoy. Plus, many parents don't appreciate having junk food offered as a reward. As for giving out toys and other material presents, I've found that today's kids, except for the very disadvantaged, are rarely moved by that. They have all the toys they could ever want at home. Or they play with the toy once and then put it away. I think having fun class experiences are the way to go, especially because it builds class cohesion and tends to be cost efficient.
I think the best way to find out what would reward kids is to ask them. Be prepared for a lot of "have a pizza party" and "drink soda with lunch" type responses at first, but if you keep a running list and get kids thinking about it for a while, you might come up with some much more unique answers.
At our school we use lifeskills. Every two months we learn about a certain lifeskill. Our principal comes into each classroom and reads a story related to the lifeskill. We have lifeskill awards that you can give to students when they demonstrate a lifeskill (patience, caring, initiative, friendship, etc.) When students receive five lifeskill awards in a month, they get to have lunch with our principal and she brings them a treat! Also, we have lifeskill grade level assemblies where our principal hands out certificates to students that teachers nominated. The student receives the certificate and a little prize.
09-14-2007, 09:10 AM
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