One of the many reasons I became a teacher was because I love to interact with kids. When it comes to classroom management I believe that the better relationship I have with my students, the better they will behave and the more efficient the classroom will run. Two things I know about kids are that they love to compete and that they love candy. I wanted to include both of these things in creating a fun and educational classroom. So I created a daily competition of Teacher vs Students.
In Teacher vs Students we are keeping score throughout the day. I have a little whiteboard in my classroom that I make tally marks on. The way the tally system works is, if the students are following expectations during work time, giving great participation, or doing quick and quiet transitions then they get a point. If the class struggles in any of those areas, I get the point. There are daily and weekly rewards tied to this game. If the students win the day, then each student gets to shoot a shot at the end of the day to see if they get a piece of candy. If I win then they don’t get the chance to shoot. For the weekly reward, if the students win 4 of the 5 days of the week then on Friday they get to have an extra recess.
The students have seemed to really enjoy this activity and it is a quick and easy system to entice them to stay on track throughout the day. It has also been really fun to see the kids cheer each other on and get really excited when they make a shot. Every now and then I add in a chance for me to shoot and if I miss it they all get candy. Safe to say I don’t feel very many of them cheering me on, but it is fun to see them get excited. I am grateful for my students and the bond we have because of relationship building things like Teacher vs Students.