Whether you’re teaching virtually, in the classroom, or a hybrid of the two, you’re probably working on a digital classroom management plan! It’s such a KEY part of building a foundation for your class (especially when you mesh it with classroom community), and I want to make sure you have everything you need in place to be successful.
The ultimate goal is for our students to be intrinsically motivated, but let’s be honest. That doesn’t always happen. ESPECIALLY at the start of the year (not to mention where quarantine, social-distancing, and technology are involved). What can we give as digital classroom management rewards that won’t cost us much and pique our students’ interests?
I’ve formulated a list of twelve rewards to work with any of the digital classroom management tools you choose to incorporate into your system. You can choose which of these free digital classroom management rewards would interest your students! I like to use classroom cash as my classroom management system, so I’ll be assigning these rewards dollar amounts for students to cash in on!
1. Pajama Pass
My students LOVE pajama day, so I thought this would be a fantastic digital classroom management reward for individual students or the whole class! You could also call it “Class in your Comfies,” if you don’t want to limit to pajamas.
2. Teacher Helper or Tech Assistant for Digital Classroom Management
Kids LOVE being the assistant or helper, and I don’t know about you, but I can use all of the help I can get! You can give them the “Tech Assistant” badge, and whenever is having technology trouble, they can contact the tech assistant before you! That’s a win-win classroom management incentive if I ever saw one!
3. Video Call Lunch Bunch
If you have your lunchtime open, this would be SUCH a great way to build relationships with your students while rewarding them for remarkable classroom behavior! You can have them choose two friends, and the four of you can get on Google Meet or Zoom together. You can eat lunch and chat together!
P.S. – I 100% recommend putting your students in small groups of 4-5 and inviting each group to a first-week-of-school lunch bunch with you to get to know each other! Relationships, first and always!
4. Personalized Screen Wallpaper
If you’re crafty on PowerPoint, Google Slides, or the Procreate app, you could create a personalized laptop or iPad screen wallpaper for students! You could ask them for a list of their favorites and make them super special! I love anything we can do to show our love for our students in creative ways. The wallpaper would also keep them reminded of staying on task while online, which will help your digital classroom management.
5. Virtual Field Trip Chooser
I love virtual field trips, and so does my class! How fun would it be for our students to choose which virtual field trips we go on? Choosing the trips would increase their buy-in and let them learn about what interests them. I’m all about incorporating my students’ interests into my classroom management!
6. Morning Meeting Leader to Combine Digital Classroom Management and Classroom Community
Morning Meeting is my class’s favorite part of the day, and once we get to know each other and get into the routine, I gradually release responsibility to my students to lead. They LOVE being in charge and leading our class meetings, so this is a MUST as a reward starting in November.
These Morning Meeting slides make having student leaders a piece of cake because everything is planned and ready for them! They just need to read the directions and lead the class in the greeting, share, activity, and message of the day!
7. Digital Puzzle Pack
You can make some digital puzzles in Seesaw or Google Slides and send them to the students! I’m thinking of word searches, crossword puzzles, sudoku, word scrambles, mazes, etc. These digital classroom management rewards are great because they work the students’ brains, and once you have some made, you can send them to students as needed.
8. Show and Tell
Show and Tell is not just for the primary students! Even your upper elementary students love sharing about what they love! My students love showing and telling about their pets, toys, siblings, books, bedrooms, and more. Show and Tell is a tremendous digital classroom management reward, and it builds classroom community as students get to learn more about each other!
9. Personalized Sign in their Yard
I don’t know a kid who wouldn’t like to wake up one morning and see a bright, personalized sign in their yard! Here are some sayings you could use:
“An Awesome Fourth Grader Lives Here!”
“Honk to tell (Student Name) that s/he is amazing!”
“(Student Name) is part of the (Class Name) Family, and we think s/he is pretty great!”
10. Read-Alouds are Always a Good Choice!
The student who gets this reward can either read a picture book aloud to the class on Zoom or Google Meet, or s/he can pick the next book that you read to the class! The book that you read to the class can be a picture book or a novel, whichever you choose. My students LOVE our novel read aloud time after lunch every day, so that’s what I would have the student choose!
11. Rainbow Pass
I was thinking about how much my students love to write and do their work with different colored pens and markers – I have a coupon called Rainbow Writing, where they get a special container of colored pens to write with for a day! You could do this digitally by allowing them to choose the color the words they’re typing are! I usually don’t allow them to change the font color from black because… #timesuck. But, it would be a fun reward for your digital classroom management system!
12. Chalk Obstacle Course
This one will take a bit more work on your end, but it could be harder to receive as a reward, so you don’t have to do it as often! I loved seeing all of the creative chalk obstacle courses people created during the quarantine. So how fun would it be to make them for your students and their families on their driveways?! As a student, that alone would make me want to exceed your expectations so I could earn that incentive!
Yay for rewards that hardly cost you anything but make your digital classroom management system a success! Let’s make this year the best year yet and encourage our students to make wise choices, exceed expectations, and enjoy the little things! Planning your classroom management incentives and rewards is so worth it!
If you’re looking for more help when it comes to classroom community, check out my free Classroom Community Planner! It’ll help you plan for every part of building a tight-knit culture and community in your classroom. It’s transformed my class, and I’m here to help you make yours better too!
