I'm new and have noticed that under the 1st step icon above, when I select "k-4th scoreboard", the 5th -12th scoreboard comes up instead.

I started the WBT last week with my new 1st grade class and I want to use the scoreboard techniques properly. Can you help?

Thanks.

As a temporary fix, at the bottom of the 5th-12th Scoreboard is a link, Motivator 1: K-4th Scoreboard Game ... click on that ... even better, go to downloads and download "The Whole Brain Teaching Ebook" which contains a complete description of the Scoreboard and all our other classroom management techniques.

Thank you. I will.

I teach first grade and would be glad to help you in any way I can! You will LOVE the way WBT involves your students in monitoring their behavior and helps them to understand what is expected! I am right in the middle of Parent-Teacher conferences, and the parents are thrilled with our classroom management system!!! Yahoo!
Deb Weigel
WBT Intern

Deb,

I would love to have help. I'm trying to stay within the +/- 3, but it's hard. I'm trying to figure out how to tie it into a reward of 20 minutes "Fun Friday" time at the end of the week.

This is how I'm using the scoreboard. I have my whiteboard with the happy face and frowny face in front of the class. Every morning the first thing we do is review the rules. As suggested, we review the rules at least 4 times throughout the day. This is our 9th day in school and the children know them well. As a matter of fact, when I tell them they have broken a rule, they can tell me WHICH one/ones. It's pretty incredible!

As I award points on the scoreboard, I make a big deal out of it, and tell the class it's a point for me or for them and why. Then we count the tally marks together. The next school morning when we assemble I tell the class who won. Now let me preface this by saying that I did't know what to do with the tally marks each day. So I put up the letters "F U N F R I D A Y". So if they win, they get to keep a letter and if I win, I remove a letter. The idea is if they have any letters left by the time of Fun Friday, they have earned free time. But now I see that I have too many letters and that they will always win.

Help. Where have I gone wrong? Shelly

Hi Shelly,
I am using daily rewards right now as well with my 4th graders. If we get to the end of the day and they win the scoreboard they get 5 minutes at the end of the day to talk or sit with a friend, or to go outside etc.. I have had days where I have made the scoreboard for half day increments and made the reward smaller. I do a Fun Friday type of idea as well. Could you have them spell Fun meaning they win 3 days out of 5? If they win you put a letter up on the board? I hope this helps! My kids LOVE the scoreboard and we rock and roll it every day. As you know each day holds it's own challenges:)

Dawn
WBT Intern

The last block of the school day (1:45 - 2:30) is the students' special (gym, art, music, science).

Therefore their award time has to be at 1:25 - 1:45 on Friday. These activities take more time than 5 minutes. The reward they win is playtime with blocks, puzzles, games, Knex (sp), etc. Taking your idea, Dawn, what if I turn it into them earning/winning/losing 5 minutes per day? Then that way they can
have something every Friday for whatever amount of time they earn overall? Just brainstorming....

And yes, every day has it's own challenge!!!!! But I love first grade!!!!

I would keep it as a reward and put an emphasis on the "earning" and positive results of their winning. 5 Minutes a day is a great idea! Do you have anything daily that they can "cash in" on? you will be surprised at how hard they work for the smallest things like 2 minutes of talk time,or leaving early for recess or lunch? With the little guys, I am wondering if they need more immediate feedback? You may already have other things in place as well. I hope this helps and if you want to brainstorm more just keep on posting

Dawn

Hi Shelly:)

The plus/minus three rule is for the purpose of motivation. If you over reward the students, they will not be motivated to try. If you over punish, they will just give up. As far as daily rewards~ with the little ones we tend to use +/- minutes early to recess. In kinder, (since they can't tell time) I say that if we have more smilies than saddies, then they get a "longer" recess and we bring out the bikes plus the "other" toys). If they are equal, we have a "regular" recess and we get the other toys (sand toys, etc) but no bikes. More saddies and we spend a minute together for "think time" (where we think of what rules/procedure we are having the hardest time with and we rehearse/practice them for one minute). When I taught third grade, it was for extra minutes of recess. Since the most the difference can ever be is 3, the most minutes they get to go out early is 3 minutes. You would be surprised at how hard these students worked for 1 extra minute of recess!!!
Also, if they lost minutes of recess, we would stand outside by our classroom and watch the other kids go out to recess. You would be surprised at how agonizing it can be to watch your friends play for one extra minute:)! When we would come back in from recess, the points are erased and they get to start all over again.
Another great reward is for minutes of mind soccer. Mind soccer is a fun, highly competitive game that reviews core concepts. Check out the mind soccer video~ it is hilarious and fun!

For long term rewards (like your fun Friday) I would use the star system. I used the weekly stars to reinforce rules we were struggling with. fOr example, Rule #2 can be a tough one. I would tell the students "let's see how long we can go without breaking Rule #2". Then we would time ourselves. The first person to shout out would help us to set our record that we would try to break. Each time we broke a record they earned a star (for example, maybe the first time was 2 minutes 20 seconds until they broke rule #2. Then I'd say "Let's see if we break our record!" if they went longer, we'd get a new star and a new record time to try to break:). In Kinder I cap the time off to 20 minutes and in third grade I capped the time off to 30 minutes. Meaning, once they reached that target time, all I had to do was set an egg timer. Each time that timer went off they would earn a star. 20 stars by the end of the week and they got their incentive. In kinder, it has always been to play on the big kids playground. In third grade it was to do centers on Friday (the funny thing was that no matter if they got the centers or not, they still had to do the work, but there was something about being able to rotate and work with a group that was particularly motivating to the students:)

I've decided to change things up a bit this year and choose different things to work on for our motivator. Generally speaking, this is what I do with the scoreboard (for example, maybe I am targeting participation for that day), but I also address other areas than just the target area. I'm thinking of using the stars to do heavy duty reinforcement of things I would like to see in the class. I will start with Rule#2, as I always do, but I think I will add "enthusiastic participation", "being on task", "using a complete sentence", etc. to spice up the game.


Hope this helps:)

Shelly,
I divide my day up and keep the rewards frequent, small, and easily attainable. For example, if the smilies are ahead before lunch, we REALLY work hard to earn 2 minute game-time before lunch. Our school starts at 7:45 AM, and we do not eat lunch until 12:10, so it's a LONG morning! The last half hour before lunch can be tough, unless they are extremely motivated! On particularily rough mornings, i may erase the scoreboard after morning recess (10:15), and we start fresh. My rewards are often a game on the interactive whiteboard, as this is extremely motivating and energizing! We have math right before lunch, so before I had the technology, we would play "math-ket-ball". The students were in teams, and I would show a problem. The first team to solve it would get to shoot a small nerf basketball into a hoop attached to our door. They LOVE it! You can review math facts, or word problems or whatever concept you would like to review. SuperSpeed Numbers and SuperSpeed Reading are also highly engaging learning games. (You can find these, and many more engaging, effective learning games under the downloads section on this site). Another reward that my students LOVE is watching a video from Harry's Kindergarten channel on YouTube. There are videos for seasons, coins, months, days, vowels, etc. Most are under 4 minutes long, and the students beg to earn the right to watch one. This reward is very effective at the end of the day, when packing up can get a bit crazy as kids swing backpacks and push and grab. As I call teams to pack up, the other teams in the class decide whether or not the procedure was worthy of a point. They are brutally honest!!! I no longer have "backpack madness" at the end of the day, and the students are involved in helping one another for the good of the class. Personally, if I had to hold over reward till Friday, the scoreboard would lose it's effectiveness. The beauty for me is the immediate reinforcement of positive classroom behavior

In the past, I have had my students work toward a "Fun Friday", like you are doing. For me, it wasn't fun! Why? I found that if they didn't EARN it, I would find myself wanting to give it to them just because I wanted them to relax a bit and have fun. Also, if they didn't earn it, the mood was downcast, and nobody was happy, particularily me!!! The system was using me, and I didn't like it!!! For me, the short term rewards are highly effective, less stressful, and fun!!!

A few of my first graders rewards are:
2 minutes of game time (interactive whiteboard or other)
2 minutes of free drawing/writing on whiteboards
Chance to sit on top of their desks for an activity
First class in line for lunch
Reading outside
Song time
Knock knock jokes
Sit by a friend for an activity
Use puppets
Have a stuffed animal on their desk
Use gel pens on a handwriting assignment
Sit under desks to read
Read magazines, I Spy Books, Comic Books, Lego magazines, etc
Our playground has a tight schedule, so going to recess early is not an option for us. But, sometimes they earn recess with ME, which means that if I am not on duty, I will come out and PLAY with them;)

Once you get the ideas rolling, you will probably come up with favorites of your own.


If you begin using small rewards twice a day, maybe Fun Friday will just become a regular part of your schedule!!!
Keep us posted, ask questions, and have fun!!!
Deb Weigel
WBT Intern

As the first two weeks went with kinders I tried to have them win the scoreboard and so smilies won. I know that to bring along some of the ones "testing" the system and some sabatogeing it I really need to step up the 3+ rule. I am having trouble being able to be fast enough, or maybe doing the scoreboard enough or in some way I just don't have the "nack" I have seen in the videos. I am very, very new to WBT but I am giving it my best try and keeping my head above the 27 wiggles and giggles of kindergarten.

Yikes, Annette in Sunny California. (not sure my first post went through so if this repeats oops)

Deb,

I love your ideas! I will work this week to implement small rewards daily and still have Fun Friday. I want them to be able to play and enjoy 15 minutes at the end of every week. This is educational and fun and nothing like this is built into the curriculum.

First grade is nothing like it was when I was in it!

Andrea,

I would love to give them extra recess, however, they only get 15 minutes daily AFTER lunch and the times are rigid. We have first of the three lunches, and 2 schools share the one playground. So, not an option for me. I will try to encourage the student to get to lunch first. That is a great incentive! I also like your idea of stars.

The only extra incentive that I have used is plain m&ms from time to time.

And the other thing, I would love to use YouTube, but it is banned (no access) by our school system.
I found out when I tried to show the YouTube videos of Chris Biffle teaching WBT after school last week to a group of school teachers. So I put the website up on the teacher's board and talked about it at our school meeting.

Shelly

This was a big help! I did the scoreboard last year with a lot of success. My students took to it right away. However, the group I have this year are unresponsive. They don't seem to be phased by the denial of a reward. I like the idea of the stars, especially for targeting the harder behaviors. I also like the idea of erasing the points each day. I had not been doing that, but letting the points build up throughout the week. I am going to try the stars and time off recess approach tomorrow. I can't wait to see if it makes a difference.