My fourth grade boys have a difficult time keeping their mouths shut in class. Not really a surprise, but it was getting pretty bad. Hm, yes, by the way I have a tiny class of fourth grade math students and they are all boys, three of them. Yesterday they had a little detention with me because of their lack of control. Today I had a lightbulb moment and it turned out better than I expected. Here's what went down...
First of all, I have these colorful mini cubes I used. They are fun to look at and handle. Each time one of the boys raised his hand, I gave him a cube. If a student talked out, I took a cube away. At the end of the class period they could pick one small object from the Goodie Box for every ten cubes they had earned. In the future, we will collect cubes all week, keep track of how many cubes each boy has, and take a prize only on Friday. I might do a system where some things take more cubes than others, or for every fifty cubes they can pick from the box, or something else like that. Maybe they can choose to collect cubes for a longer period of time and get a larger prize. It all just occurred to me today so I haven't worked out the details. Any ideas are welcome.
The best part of all this is that the boys thought it was a super fun game and asked if we could play it again next week! Several times they caught themselves talking out and turned in a cube. Then they corrected their behavior and worked on remembering to raise their hand. No one got mad if he had to put a cube back. Weird, but hey, if it works...
For me, it means they're being quiet and raising their hands. And now we're all happy.
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