So our Kindergarten teacher has been our for the last few weeks. The dean had been planning lessons for the substitute, but she is gone now so we are all at a lost. I am in the Kindergarten class for an hour everyday and I have been tired of not accomplishing anything these last few weeks since our normal classroom teacher has not been there. So today I took it upon myself to plan a centers activity. Each student got a packet that corresponded with the centers and on the front they had an incentive chart. They had three boxes on the front that a teacher could put a smiley face in if they did a great job. If a student is not following directions or not listening they lost their front page. Now the front page is super important to them because each smiley face they received was an entry into the drawing for a "Right-On Ticket". A bonus was if they filled all three boxes they received 4 entries instead of just 3. Of course if they lost their front page, they could earn it back, but they had to refocus and get back to work. It seemed to work really well. Also, students are getting much better at applauding for their classmates when they win the drawing instead of crying or getting upset if they don't win. This is a huge step for this group! We have been doing the drawing now for about a week and it is a real great motivator for the class. To start this routine, I started with every student having 3 slips of paper and when I thought they deserved to be in the "bucket" I would walk by and put the bucket down in front of them. Of course if their behavior is not "1st grade ready" I told them I would dump every name into the trash and start all over again. I only had to do this once and the lesson set in really fast. I had a FULL bucket and then they just lost control and focus and I waited till everyone's eyes were on me and I dumped every name in the trash. This was upsetting of course but behavior improved dramatically afterwards.
Now me are moving on to a punch card idea. Students will get a punch from the teacher/para/adult running each station. If there is no adult or para to give the punch, students will be given punches based on teacher observation. I am hoping this discourages students from trying to draw their own smiley faces on their incentive chart. If this was my class I might make the punch card a part of the whole day. Have one for the whole day and then make the punch cards worth "class bucks" the students can collect in order to "buy" prizes. But I am only in the class for an hour so this isn't possible. I like the punch card idea though a lot that I am thinking of doing something like this for my own classroom in the high school setting (when I find a job). Except I want to make it like a time card. Their time card would have a warm up and exit ticket place and they must have it clipped while walking in and clipped while walking out (JUST LIKE A JOB!)
I will post the punch cards and the center papers soon! Let me know if you have any questions as well!
