I love trying new strategies in my classroom. Each group of students is unique and what works for one group won't necessarily work for the next.
Homework was a struggle this year, thus I used Ursula as a motivator.
She worked well for some students but not for all. I've had conferences, phone calls, and sent notes home. Some students just won't do their homework and nightly reading, which is frustrating because the only person they end up hurting is themselves by hindering their progress. I also realize as an educator, there are lots of things I can't control. I can't go home with them and make sure they read. I can't control their home life, I can just provide a supportive educational environment.
I found this great idea today:
What a fun whole-class reward! Using a free scrabble font and card stock, I can easily create free rewards. I could use scrabble tiles or have the student of the week pick a letter to shade. There are lots of different ways I could reward students to have whole class buy in. I'm excited to try this strategy next year!
For those that have been following the adventures of Ursula, I'm pleased to announce that she's done!
My students enjoyed chips and capri sun during our movie reward. I'm pleased with the positive changes I've seen in most of them. The strategy didn't work for all my students but it was nice to reward the students who are trying :)
Ladies and gentlemen, I'm pleased to announce there is just one more week of our homework challenge with Ursula:
All she needs is her wand and she'll be ready to reward the students who have earned their homework reward.
Students needed to fully complete their homework for 8 of the 10 weeks to be invited to the reward party. All I ask of them is one sheet of math homework and their reading logs. I'm not asking for perfection, I'm asking for effort.
Around twenty of my thirty one students will be attending, so it will be nice to celebrate with the students who are being responsible.
I'm sure I'll get attitude from the ones who aren't invited to our recess celebration, but it's a natural consequence to their actions. I'm not sure what messages they receive at home, but in my classroom, if you don't do the work, you don't get the reward. It's that simple.
For those of you following the adventurous building of Ursula, here is her most recent glamour shot:
As you can see, she is nearly complete! With three weeks left in this class motivator, I'm pleased to see a nice change in some of my students. Did this motivator work for all of them? No, of course not. But I have seen more effort out of most of them, which is what I was going for.
We'll be having a lunch time party for those students who fully completed their homework for eight of the ten weeks. It will be a juice and donuts party during recess time and by invitation only! I'm excited to get to positively reward my students who are consistently trying their best.
Tomorrow she'll get her arms, next week her yellow shells and her sea horse scepter on the final week!
Before winter break, I blogged about our new class motivator Ursula:
A few weeks went by and as a class, they didn't earn any pieces. I could tell most of my class was getting frustrated because it was always 2 or 3 students who didn't do their work and ruined it for the whole class.
Their homework is a reading log, 30 minutes of reading a night and one double sided math sheet that reviews what they learned in class the week before. They get their homework on Friday and it's due the following Friday, so there is truly no reason it shouldn't get done.
One particularly difficult student kept arguing how the homework simply couldn't get done because of outside commitments. Now, I've talked with the family about this and the student isn't truthful about the work. If there's time for video games, there's time for homework. No excuses.
So we had a class discussion of who has extra curricular activities (sports, church, music, family time, etc.) Every student raised his or her hand, so we talked about making time for what's important...and that includes homework. I made the connection with sports and how homework is like practice. If you don't practice, you won't do as well as you can on game days. That seemed to resonate with many of my students.
We voted how we wanted to change Ursula. I suggested a table team reward and that was vetoed by the tables where students aren't doing their work. Thirty out of my thirty one students wanted Ursula to be on an individual basis so they were only accountable for themselves.
For the next ten weeks, they have to turn in their fully completed homework eighty percent of the time. (8/10 seems fairly generous). If they do this, they get to join our lunch party. One student asked what would happen if she turned in all of her homework (as she's done the entire year), so I said those students would get an extra reward.
I love that they're so motivated now!
We added our first piece:
Isn't she lovely?
I talked with them about how everyone was still invited, just some students already used one of their two "freebie" weeks. I hope this really turns around the homework slide we've been noticing!
Well, Ursula is here:
When she's done, she'll look a little something like this:
I was hopeful she'd earn her tail today, but 4 students didn't return their weekly homework so she didn't. (But 4/31 is a huge improvement, so I'm thrilled this positive motivator is working!)
Instead of me expressing my disappointment, I headed over to Voki to make a free online puppet. I found an eel-like one that reminded me of Ursula's pet eels, so I used that.
I typed up a whole story about how the evil Ariel turned Ursula into a potato head and her eels missed her! Hear her story here!
I plan to do this a few times as a motivator :)
I'm hoping they all do their work next week so we can add our first piece!
I've struggled this year with my students turning in homework. I'm fully aware of the research that traditional homework in elementary school isn't very beneficial, but their homework is reading logs (we expect nightly reading) and math review.
Instead of being negative and always assigning detention, I've decided to try a more positive approach instead.
Each week that my students bring back their completed homework, they will earn a piece toward our Mr. Potato head. When our spud is fully assembled, they'll earn a prize.
However, I didn't go for any ordinary Mr. Potato head. Oh no, I ordered this mermaid version instead:
We shall name her Ursula and she shall have a place of honor in our classroom! Amazon will deliver her next week :)
