Praising students

Hi everyone,

And Congratulations/Well done/Great Effort - on reading this blog.

As you may have guessed this blog is about praising student's.

My personal belief is that you can never give anyone too much praise (as long as it's genuine!).  As far as I know no one ever died of a praise overdose.

Of course there are a million and one ways to praise kids I am sure.  For today's blog I thought I would just share a couple of things I do with my class.

In my class I have a Star Chart wall.  The students each have an individual star chart.  I just downloaded a ready made one from the internet.  However in previous lives (ie other jobs) I have made personalised ones with pics of the student's interests, etc.


Click on this link to view some of the many printable reward charts available on the internet:

Reward Charts


Here is a pic of my Star Chart Wall:

I dish out stars for all sorts of things - small and big - a great answer, following instructions, effort, helping, noticing someone being "good", etc.  You name it..... well you get the gist.  I also give my Teacher Aides free rein to dish out the stars too.
This does mean that the star charts fill up pretty quickly so I have a supply ready printed.
I did think about laminating them and using a dry wipe for the stars - but they can get pretty messy like this - and also the student's like to take home the completed charts to show off to mum and dad.  One mum told me her fridge is pretty much covered with all the star charts - but she loves it.
We all make sure that stars are added to the charts as soon as poss after they are awarded.
Anyway - once a star chart is completed the students receive a certificate.  I just made the certificates using Office Publisher - again I keep a ready printed supply to hand:

This certificate does not appear particularly child friendly.  I have a class of intermediate students (10-13 years).  I gave them a choice of certificate and they chose this design -  because it looks like a "proper" certificate.

I also give out a Student of the Week certificate to a student in the class.  They receive a certificate and also get their photo on the Star Chart board for the week.  Again - a very basic certificate just made using Office Word:

 When I award the students a certificate I make it into a bit of an event.  Star chart certificates are handed out on the day the star chart is completed.  Student of the Week certificates are awarded at the end of the day on a Friday.  It is a timetabled event and has it's own symbol for the schedule.  The certificates are presented, a photo is taken and a round of applause is given.  They love it!!!!!!
When receiving a certificate the students get to stand on the "Star of Fame":

This is a highly technical piece of equipment - a piece of sticky back chalkboard on the floor.  Simple - but again - they love standing on it to get their award.  They also like to take it in turns to draw the star.

All the photos get placed on the "Wall of Fame" - as you can see now it's now Term 4 and the wall is getting quite full:

By the way - the Teacher Aides and even moi - have their photos up there with a certificate (I can supply autographs on request).
I put all pics with certificates on the wall as well as Principal awards/Special Olympics certificates and anything else that may crop up.

As a reward for achieving Student of the Week - that particular student gets to pick the Letter of the Week for the following week.  They do this via a "lucky dip" - no peeping!!!
They then get to place the letter on the letter chart - via another technical tool - Velcro.
The students see this as a great honour:

That's it for now - see you next time.