Motivating students to doing something is a big challenge. Motivating them to accomplish something with purpose and a specific goal in mind is also a challenge. With this in mind, I have come up with a Monster Box. The monster box is a way for students to be motivated to accomplish a task with a specific goal in mind that rewards their efforts in a tangible way. Much like my Incentive Cards, this accomplishes the same goal, but in a different way.
I made my monster box by simply cutting the top off of a Goldfish box. Then I glued pieces of construction paper around the box.
I got the monsters from an bulletin board set. Here is some you could print out from
Scappin Doodles for $1.00!
You could put anything on the side of the box, as long as you can cut a whole at the mouth.
I bought inexpensive pom poms to feed the monster with. My kids loved it! I made each monster a different focus. So we had the note monster, the rhythm monster, the dynamic monster and the posture monster. You could come up with whatever focus you wanted to.
Cute! What happens when the students fill up the box? (That's always my students first question so I thought I'd ask- ha! ha!)
ReplyDeleteWell the pom poms I bought are pretty small, so they really can't fill up the box, but if you could buy bigger ones. Of course they could get a prize or maybe a free choice of activity or piece to play. You could give a prize away after earning 10 pom poms or how every many you want them to work for. My kids love feeding the monster and it is so simple. :)
ReplyDeleteBeen missing you and your always-interesting posts!
ReplyDeleteHope all is well with you!
You are so sweet to post about my absence. I have been super busy teaching an autism inclusion class for a teacher who was out on maternity leave. It has been a wonderful experience and I am now on Spring Break, so hope to get back to posting soon!!
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