Hello Incentives!

I try all kinds of things.

For the 3rd grade, I held a contest where donuts were a prize. Of course, now the kids want everything to be a contest but I think it got them all excited. I use candy now and then and feel like I get harassed for candy for the rest of the time. I’ve found it works best for team/group games…otherwise, you just have the smartest students taking the candy and makng fun of everyone else.

Today, I tried something new. In an attempt to remedy a wild class induced bad mood, I found some cute stickers and brought them to class. I figured I needed to get rid of them eventually and that I’d just put them on all the worksheets that I thought were funny. This got a weird response.

A lot of students worked pretty hard to make me laugh and got stickers and the copy cats (used to cheating through worksheet exercises) suddenly found their perfect but cookie cutter answers unrewarded. Even my super smart kids got involved.
At first I was offended when they asked the purpose of the stickers but I found an answer that satisfied both them and myself

“It’s just for fun, guys”

Stickers ended up on hands and papers and books and desks but it got a lot of students to read their sentences aloud. AND the best part was that I didn’t get chased down the hallway afterwards with sticker demands.

It’s amazing how a bad day can be cured with cute, glittery, pointless stickers.