I am here to tell you that I do NOT use the clip chart. I used it my first year. I used it my second year. I threw it away my third year, and I have not looked back!
I liked the clip chart. It worked GREAT with my 4th graders my first year of teaching. They could earn little jewels to put on their clips if they clipped off, after 5 jewels they retired their clip to the Wall of Fame, and I bought them candy. Then we switched to a coin system that the 5th grade team came up with, so I clipped and gave bonus coins for jewels.
My second year teaching I switched schools, but I kept it up because the entire school used it and the kids could earn sparkly bees from the office. It worked for me.
Then, last year happened, and it was not effective. At all. The kids did not respond to being on the different colors. They did not care about the sparkly bees. They just wanted to be on their favorite color, even if it was BELOW green! I had kids who WANTED to be RED because they liked red! Whaaaaat!?
So, I had to switch. HAD. TO. SWITCH. One of my teammates had been having similar issues, and she had switched her kids to Super Bucks. So, I took a leaf out of her book and switched my kids to Dino Bucks. Super Hero themed classroom=Super Bucks, so Dinosaur theme=Dino Bucks.
It changed my life! They responded. They WANTED bucks! They did not want to lose bucks. It was amazing! I do Fun Friday in my room for an hour each Friday, so now they had to buy their choices with their bucks. Didn't have enough for the iPad? Guess you have to work harder next week! And then they did. It was amazing.
So, I kept it up this year, and it has been just as wonderful! We talk about how adults get paid to do their job, so we were doing the same thing in our room. Their job was to work and to follow the rules, and my job is to teach. Then we talked about how if I break the law I have to pay, so if they were breaking rules they would have to pay. BUT. They can always earn it back for turning their behavior around, and I have been very consistent with them earning it back this year! At the end of each day, they tell me how many (out of 4) they think they earned. If I disagree because they are saying 4 when they were in trouble quite I bit I just tell them to reconsider, and they do, and they will tell me 3 or even 2. I also give bonus bucks whenever I see kids going above and beyond.
On Fridays they count their bucks, I write it down on a paper that says, "I earned ____ bucks this week." and then I check if they are doing great, making improvements, or if they are having trouble and need to set a goal. So far, I have not had anyone need to set a goal because they all loooooove earning their bucks every day!
They keep their bucks in little library pocket cards. Sometimes I have issues with kids stealing bucks, but I can usually figure out who it is because they come to me with, like, 35 bucks when the max is 16 unless they earn bonus bucks. So we chat, and they lose their bucks that week, and it never seems to happen again.
I adore this system! It works for me and for my kids. The whole 1st grade uses it, and there has been talk about maybe getting the other grades to switch over too. Maybe this is the year that you, too branch out from the clip chart! There's a whole wide world of management out there, and it actually works!
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Computer is 12 and iPad is 15. I added those in later because the first few weeks we didn't use any technology. |
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