Pinterest

I love Pinterest. It's a great site for finding inspiration. Usually the ideas are brilliantly simple! You might want to follow some of my boards at http://pinterest.com/primarydeputy/.

Here are some ideas I have adopted recently:

Homework Bingo
Anyone who hands their homework in on time gets to choose a square for the Homework Bingo game. Each week two squares are chosen at random and the children who chose them are given a reward.

Reminders
I've added this to the front of my classroom. I use it to add reminders for the children about what they are working on. Like a Working Wall, I guess, but I pick the messages!

Class rules display
This helped to inspire the class rules display in my classroom.

Book recommendations display
We will be adding post-its to our very own book recommendations display in school soon.

Reward chair
Our reward chair is used by the child who wins the class merit. They get to sit on it for the whole week!

Compliment Jar
Using ping pong balls, the class have been given a compliment jar to collect compliments from other adults. They aren't allowed to put in compliments from the teachers and teaching assistants in Year Four - they have to be from other adults, and each adult can only be added once. The compliment has to be directed at the whole class. When a compliment is given we write it on a ping pong ball and drop it into the jar. When it's full (it's likely to take a while) the class will be given a reward.

Effort grade
As part of their self-assessment at the end of the lesson the children also now give an effort grade to say how hard they worked in the lesson. 1 means they didn't really try at all. 2 means they tried, but not their best. 3 means they tried their best. 4 means they tried their best and they were an inspiration to others. It's been a useful way of seeing who is challenging themselves in class.

Rewards Treasure Box
The rewards in our treasure box are used to reward children in Homework Bingo.

Homework Books
When I return from my knee injury I'll be introducing some collaborative homework books. The children will be given a book, complete a piece of homework in it before passing it to another child next week. One of the homework books will be a secret mission book, a bit like this.