I had great plans for this week but instead I have spent the past few days trying to recover from a bad episode with my back. Having all of this free time has made me start up my Instagram page again. I forgot how much I love having a browse at other teacher's ideas on Instagram One thing I have noticed is that you can very easily feel under pressure to be that perfect 'Pinterest' teacher. Your classroom should be a work in progress and doesn't need to be completed before the children arrive. Don't feel under pressure to have everything perfect in the beginning. I teach SEN and at first I struggled to find a good rewards system. I generally don't have many issues with behaviour but quite often the rewards are to help motivate the children. The system that works with my class is a sticker chart system. The children can earn one sticker for each lesson once the follow the classrom rules. Our rules for last year were: 1.Listen to teacher 2. Try your best 3. Show Respect Once the children follow each of the rules then they get to choose a sticker for their chart. They are also responsible for their own sticker chart and must remember to bring it to class. If they forget their chart then they cannot get a sticker. When they reach 10 stickers they can cash in their stickers to get a small prize e.g. pencils, erasers, marbles. They also have the choice of saving up to 20 stickers so that they can get a bigger prize. These include novelty erasers, pens, bouncy slime, lots of these prizes are bought in Tiger. These will all be put in my 20 sticker box.
It gives the children more choice over their prize and also promotes decision making skills. If they have 10 stickers they can ask to look at the 10 prize box and see if there is anything they would like or if they would rather keep saving. The 10 prize box always has basic pencils, erasers, sharpeners and rulers. This means that the children can earn their stickers for things that they might need rather than just something they want. At Christmas time this year several children saved their stickers and got prizes that they wanted to give their siblings and parents as gifts. I was so surprised by this and just thought that it was so sweet. This year I will also allow the children to give me ideas of prizes they might like to have in the box around Christmas time. I bought new sticker charts in Target this year. Twinkl also have reward chart that you can print and Mol an Óige have ones that you can buy.
2 Comments
Caitríona
8/20/2018 02:47:32 am
How did you purchase from Target?!
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Niamh
8/20/2018 05:15:11 am
Unfortunately I'm one of those annoying people that was in the States this summer. I picked up a few bits there this year but not as much in previous years.🙄
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AuthorI have been teaching for several years and hope to share some of my ideas and experiences with you. Archives
March 2020
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