Monday Made It #5 - Pot of Gold

Here it is, Monday again!  Which means I'm linking up with Tara from 4th Grade Frolics and showing off my newest creation.  I actually made quite a few things this past week but my upcoming schedule is pretty full so I'm going to save them for the weeks to come (just in case I can't make anything).

My Monday Made It this week is inspired by a lot of things actually.  First was the cute lollipop tree that I've seen on Pinterest.  When kids do a great job they get to pick one from the tree and some special lollipops have the bottom of their stick colored which gets them an extra special treat.  I know a lot of primary grades do this and I wasn't sure how my bigger kids would go for the lollipop and what my extra treat would be, but I loved the concept!  Okay, that was number one.  Second inspiration: My kids last year got so excited whenever we pulled out my phone to use an app, time each other, etc. (I so wish I could get an IPAD!) that I wanted to incorporate a little more technology into our classroom.  And the final inspiration for this week's project is my heritage and how the kids responded to it last year.  I'm part Irish (in case that glaring bright white skin didn't give it away) and for some reason the kids were all over that last year.  They loved it!  I think they really just all loved finding out each other's cultures but one student in my class dubbed me "Tirishcan" = Texan Irish American.  I can't even make that up if I tried, lol.  So thus, you add those three inspirations together and you get "Pot of Gold," my motivational incentive!

I snagged my witch's pot from Halloween, made a cute little tag and tied it off with raffia around the brim and I've got myself a pot.  Now for the gold part.  I had about 40 bottle caps and spray painted them gold.  I recommend spraying close and only one coat or the color tends to dull, although that could have just been my paint.  Then you figure out your rewards.  Here are some that I did:

$5, $10, $25, $50 Classroom Cash

No homework pass

Free pencil

Free candy

Free snack

5 extra credit points

Pick your chair for next class

Lunch with a friend

Pick a book for our next literature circle

Computer Time

Add 50 class points

Pick an item from the treasure chest

I turned those rewards into QR Codes by going to the website Qurify and typing them into it's QR Code generator.  You can save the code as a picture, print it off, or just copy!  For those of you who don't know what a QR Code is, it's that box that looks like a messed up bar code and you can scan them with your phone and it takes you to a site, or in our case pulls up a reward message.  I printed them off on Avery's 3/4" Circle Stickers and used their template off line.

When my kids are going above and beyond they can pick a piece of gold from the pot and at the end of class we will scan it and let them get their reward.  You can put the gold back for another "lucky" student when finished!  Some of the easier ones, like pencil or candy, have about 5-6 bottle caps, whereas $50 Classroom Cash has only one bottle cap.

 

 

I have a lot more bottle caps and plan to make some math stations with them.  Maybe multiplication or division with the problem on the top of the cap and you'll have to scan underneath to get the answer.  Or possibly putting fractions in order from least to greatest and you have to scan to see if it is correct.  Who knows?!  The possibilities are endless...  What would you do with them?

Sabra

Classroom Economy

One thing that I wanted to implement this upcoming year was a classroom economy.  My last experience with a real classroom economy was during my senior internship and I loved the effectiveness of it.  So upon hours of research and looking at what other teachers do in their classroom, I think I have created something great that will work for us.  I wanted it to be as life like as I could make it without it being too much work for me throughout the year.

First up is our classroom job chart.  This past year I was REALLY bad about switching jobs on a regular basis and hopefully this will help with that.  By doing it this way every student will have a job and get a weekly salary based on their job.  Some jobs require more time than others which is why the salaries are different.  The students will keep their jobs for twelve weeks (the length of our trimesters) and be able to switch for the second and third trimesters. 

At the beginning of the year they will fill out an application for a job and check off three jobs that they feel comfortable doing for twelve weeks.  We will have gone over each job at this point, so there shouldn't be any surprises when they are required to do something during the year.  If at the end of the twelve weeks they realize that they do not want one of their checked off job choices (or just plain don't remember what they chose), they can always change their picks before the second or third term jobs are selected.  I got my Classroom Job Application from Mrs. Sanchez's site but tweaked it a little to meet our classroom needs.

Throughout the year there will be ways to earn money and lose money.  Just like in real life they will have to pay rent (desk), insurance (chair), and bills (electric, internet, and trash) every month.  They will also have to pay "fines" for not having homework or their materials ready or being disrespectful.  They can earn money through their salary, behavior color week, good behavior, etc.

Every week our economists will check that students correctly inputted their debits and credits in their checkbook register.  At the end of every trimester we will have an auction where students can spend their hard earned money on things like extras of books I have, magazines, dollar store items, candy, homework passes, sit with a friend at lunch pass, mystery envelopes, etc.  The last auction always has bigger and better items for those that have been saving all year.

The kids really seem to respond when it comes to the money that they earned.  They worked hard for it and they work hard to keep it.  The first few weeks will be a lot of modeling but I'm hoping that after the first month this classroom economy should be soley run by the students themselves!

Sabra