I would like to make sure I understand the scoreboard rewards correctly. My students need to have both short and long term rewards? By the way I teach fourth grade (not sure if that matters).

Also for those of you who use more/less recess I have yet another question. My recess time is at 9:30 AM, so do I start the scoreboard over during the middle of the day??? I am curious how you manage this reward. Thanks in advance!

In general, we use the Scoreboard for daily rewards/penalties and put stars (or some other symbol) on the black board for long term rewards, for example a 5 minute popcorn party on Friday (whenever the class has accumulated 10 stars.) Start by playing the Scoreboard for a minute or so lost or gained for first recess, then start over for lunch, then start over for second recess. Keep the rewards and penalties small, so that that they be gradually increased as the year progresses.

For the Weekly Stars (as Biff described below)~ you can use this to reinforce following a "tough" rule. For instance, we use our Weekly Stars for how long we go without breaking Rule #2 (Raise your hand for permission to speak). In the beginning we see "how long we can go". Each time we break our record we earn a star. Once we get up to 20 minutes (usually this happens within the first few days of school), we just use a timer and cap the time off at 20 minutes. EAch time the timer goes off and we haven't broken Rule #2 (or whatever rule you are working on), they get a star. If they shout out (break rule #2) we reset the timer. 20 stars and on Friday we get a class reward. In kinder~ we get to go on the "big kids" playground. In third grade, I let the students have centers. (the funny part was that the centers was work we were going to do that day anyway, i just themed it: reading/ writing/ art/ computers/ etc and had it in different parts of the room. Students rotated with their table group to each of the "centers". Since students pretty much stop doing centers at our school in K, possibly first, they thought this was very cool:). The best part was when they didn't win, I still had them do the same work, just at their desks, independently! I also made it that students who did not finish their homework did not get to rotate and had to finish their homework and whatever work at whatever center they missed because they were catching up on their homework. If they could get caught up, they could join the groups:)

If you want to tie in the scoreboard game with the "Weekly stars"~ you could give a star each time students have more smilies than saddys when they go out to recess. Then they just accumulate them until they reach the goal and get the award. I've heard of awards such as: an extra recess, being allowed to choose their own seats for the day, pick their own groups for an activity, etc.

For daily rewards we do longer/shorter/regular recess~ but you can also do minutes of PAT time (preferred activity time~ you'd be surprised how hard students will work to be able to have 2 minutes of time to choose what they want to do, within your pre-disclosed boundaries), or even play the awesome game of "Mind Soccer" (check out WBT website for details)

Hope this helps:)

I am unable to do the recess as a reward at my school. Every reward must not take away from instructional time. That being said, I have my students receive a short term reward that day such as more/less homework (never a sheet I feel must be completed, but extra), superspeed reading/math, extra center time, etc. Then we play for brownie points for a longterm reward. I have an aluminum brownie pan glued to my wall and when they beat me I add a brownie to the sheet. They are laminated pictures of a brownie square with a magnet on the back. Once the pan is full (beginning of the year it may be 9 brownies, end of the year 15) I make brownies and bring them to school for the students. I know not all schools can do this with the mandates they may have, however I can. It is a cheap reward and the kids love it.

Hello, quick idea/question about the rewards: Has anyone used mind soccer as a reward? We already do centers and we have no recess. We are also in the no brownie camp (although I REALLY like that idea)

For a complete description of how to use the Scoreboard, see Chapter 11 of the free download, "Whole Brain Teaching for Challenging Kids" ... and yes, we think Mind Soccer is a great reward for Smileys ... thanks!

My students love to play Super Speed 100 as a class, so an incentive for the score board is the chance to play it. I love how they are working their hardest to "play" when in fact they are learning! WBT is incredible!