I am curious to know what kind of incentives teachers are using when the children are able to "earn" more smiles than frowns on a daily basis. Also, I noticed that Andrea had stars that the students earned for a weekly incentive. I would love to know more about that. How are the stars earned, how many do they need to earn, and what are they working toward? Thanks! I love having a kindergarten specific forum because kindergarten is such a different ball game.

Hi there! When my students have more smilies than frownies, I give them a "longer" recess and they get to ride the bikes. If they are equal, students get to have a "regular" recess. If there are more frownies, we get a shorter recess. We have a minute of "think time" to think of what routines we are struggling with. Then we use a minute or two to practice the routine(s).

The stars are a Weekly incentive for how long the students can go following rule #2: "Raise your hand for permission to speak." At the beginning of the year I say: "Let's see how long we can go without breaking Rule #2." When someone breaks the rule, we write down the time (say, for instance, 32 seconds...LOL). Then I tell them "IF you can break that record by going longer ("do you think we can go longer than 32 seconds? Yes we can! I'm going to give you a star. IF we have 20 stars at the end of the week, then we will get to go on the Big Playground (this is where the big kids play)." It is a slow process, but once they get up to 20 minutes, then I just set the timer for 20 min. Each time we make 20 min. without forgetting to raise their hands and the timer goes off they get a star. If they don't make it (someone shouts out) we do a "Mighty Groan" and we reset the timer.

Hopes this help:)

The timer idea and focusing on one rule is wonderful ... Rule #2 really is the key principle for a well organized class, because it is the rule that is most frequently broken.

An alternative for weekly rewards might be a short game (say 5 mintues) of Mind Soccer (see "Free Downloads" on this site) ... a game that reviews any material that you have covered. Then you are in the wonderful position of having the kids work really hard at raising their hand for permission to speak to earn the reward of reviewing course material. You know what that is called? Teacher Heaven!

I would love to get someones opinion on this. I made a comment about what I use to do for extracredit/dextracredit and one of the chris's said you might want to do more of a short term goal instead of a long term goal. So I switched it up and we now do teacher vs. student. It works awesome! There is never a range of more than 3 points between the two of us. With the points they have at the end of the day they are the minutes of structured free time. When the time comes, I set the timer, play a hip/hop song that they requested (lyrics reviewed) and one student picks from a pile of flash cards listing different activities the kids came up with (hot potato, whisper and walk, silent ball, add 30 seconds, draw again, workout mania, dance & freeze, ect) Once the timer goes off the kids go straight to their seats. Even though we have only given 3 minutes, the kids love that 3 minutes. Especially when they get to listen to their kind of music.

That sounds awesome! I attended the WBT Conference last week at UNA and I can't wait to use these ideas with my class in the fall. I love the gestures for the rules. This is all new to me. I have been teaching for 16 years, so it is true that you can teach an old dog new tricks!