Looking for a new behavior management ideas? Try classroom points. It’s a positive reward system that works!
I know a lot of teachers will see the title of this post and think “eek gad, extrinsic motivators”. I totally would have passed up the idea of classroom points if I wasn’t heavily coerced by one of my grade level colleagues. Now that I have the (simple) system in place, I LOVE IT. So, “how do you do it” you ask…
Make points – I just laminate a big few pieces of construction pape and chop it up into little squares. I have three values of points – blue=1 point, red=2 points, yellow=3 points (for super behaviors).
Pass out points for anything you like! I pass them out whenever I want to reinforce behavior. Most often I keep points in my back pocket during independent reading, math workshop, while the students are walking in line. My students know that when they earn a point, they quietly put it away or hold it in their hand until they put it away. It is a simple way to give praise that doesn’t cost anything!
Make sure your students have a place to keep their points. I made up point pouches that are velcroed to the back of their chairs.
Let students buy! Every Friday I give the students a chance to BUY or SAVE their points. We go around the circle and listen to what every student wants to do. There is such a good lesson to be learned about saving up points for something big vs. impulsively buying whenever there is something a student can afford. I have some students who have hundreds of points saved up for a really special shopping spree and then some students who buy whatever they can, WHENEVER they can 🙂
Choose the items for sale. Everything I sell is an award that is simple and easy for me to provide:
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- Take off shoes for a day – 10 points
- Read the class a story – 10 points
- Choose a classroom job – 15+ (I do auction style bidding for jobs)
- Morning computer time – 20 points
- Show and tell – 20 points
- Sit in a spinny chair (teacher chair) all day – 40 points
- Lunch with Miss Swanson – 50 points
- Sometimes I will add special things. For example, I just got a REALLY cool hologram book that costs 5 points to look at. The kids were GOING CRAZY to buy it!
- This is a great way to control behaviors that may be slightly annoying to you. For example, I hated it when kids were always sitting in my teacher chair. Voila, you can only sit in it if you buy it. Last year my students had to buy the privilege to write on the whiteboards. Wonderful!
- I have never had any problems with other students stealing points. I had to give a VERY stern warning at the beginning of the year. The consequence for touching someone else’s pouch is an immediate elimination from participating with points all year.
- There are some great point prize packs available on the web. I have not made one. But a cute pack I have seen is here.
- Walking around and quietly giving out points is such an immediate behavior changer! The other kids see it and straighten up. But, I have learned that it is best to be firm and just give points when they were already on task BEFORE you started passing anything out.
- There are a lot of “prizes” that the kids LOVE to get that melt my heart. It is amazing when one of your struggling readers gives you all their points so they can read the class a story. It is beautiful and makes my teacher heart sing 🙂
