Rewards

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Rewards are important, both in the classroom and in general. Why, just the other day I rewarded myself and Kolby with these:

We had had a very long week, and so large Fritz's concretes were necessary on Thursday night. Needless to say, we had some leftovers on Friday. 

In my classroom, I focus on positive incentives/recognition for my students. In my opinion, it is so imperative that kids are recognized for the positive things they do and not just the negative.  I write frequent positive office referrals (I actually have held the 'record' for the past four years), and every Friday I give out two "Snaps" awards to two kids from each hour. The awards can be for anything, whether it was doing a good deed, earning an A on a test, or simply being awesome.  I make a BIG deal out of presenting these awards, and the kids who earn them are presented with a certificate, a prize from the prize jar (seen below on top of my plastic drawers), and also some tickets that can be used in our team raffles.

This year I started another way to recognize my students for doing well. Ladies and gentleman, allow me to present the Woot Wall:

Every Friday when I pass back the graded work for that week, the kids search through their returned papers and look at their grades. If they earn a high A on either a quiz, a lab, or a test, then I write "WOOT" on their paper. If they earn a "WOOT," then they get to go and sign the "Woot Wall." Each hour has a different piece of paper that the kiddos sign. At the end of the quarter, they get to count how many times their signature is on the wall and multiply that number by 3, and that is how many tickets they receive towards our quarterly raffles. As awesome as that is, that alone is not what has excited the kids the most about the Woot Wall. What they love about the Woot Wall most...are smelly stickers they get to "bedazzle" their science journals with.

Oh yes. Middle schoolers ♥ smelly stickers, and I can't even tell you how excited they are to find that one precious sticker they most covet to decorate their journal with. The excitement that is heard when they shout, "I got a Woot!" is so exciting, and it is really a positive reward system for my kiddos. It's fun watching them compare their journals and counting the number of stickers they have earned. Overall, I think it is going to be a successful reward system this year. Woot!

Speaking of rewards, I believe it's time for some more of that leftover frozen custard...

What do you do to reward yourself or to reward kids in your classroom?