Welcome to the Elementary STEM Coach Podcast. I'm your host, Naomi Meredith, a former classroom teacher turned K-5 STEM teacher and coach. With over a decade of experience teaching and a master's degree in STEM leadership, I'm here to coach you throughout the year to help you gain back more time to create innovative experiences for your students.

I got a question asked over on my Instagram @naomimeredith_ and it reads, Hi Naomi, I was wondering if you have any recommendations for whole classroom reward systems. This is an area I'm struggling as a first year STEM teacher. This is a great question.

And whether you teach the same kids all week, you see the whole school in one week, or maybe you even teach STEM after school clubs, or you are subbing as a STEM teacher, which is all the above all the things that I have done and do. So let's get into this classroom reward system that I came up with that I actually have tested with classes. It is very, very simple.

Anybody can implement it. Even if you're a classroom teacher, it's very easy to manage, very straightforward. And I think you're definitely going to enjoy it.

So this classroom reward system that I came up with is called Behavior Blast Off. And all it is is a poster with the title of Behavior Blast Off. It has a giant rocket and then an open space that will have five large stars.

Then on the side, I have a small cup of other stars. And each star has their own number labeled one through 30. The goal of this behavior management system is that it is rewarding positive behaviors.

So the goal for the class is to earn all five stars to get a five star rating. And we know that can be a good thing if it's five out of five stars. So the kids of the class are trying to earn these five stars.

And every time they're demonstrating the positive behaviors that you talk about in your classroom all the time, they can earn a star that goes right above that rocket. And every time you see those things, they can earn another star. And for every star that is earned, you have that tiny cup of the stars with the numbers.

At the end of class, that means how many stars that the class earned, the big ones, is how many little stars you're going to pull out of this cup. And I mentioned that all these little stars have a number on them. And those numbers match a student.

So maybe it is their cubby number, their laptop number. So you probably have the kids numbered one through 25 or however many students you have. So if the class earns four stars, that means you pick out four stars out of the cup.

And what happens when you pick those stars at the end of class? Well, they can earn a small prize. And this could be very small. It could be a sticker.

Maybe there are things that the school already does that they can earn. Maybe you have school stickers they can earn. Maybe it is to help you out or to have lunch with you.

Whatever it may be. It can be a very big prize. It can be a very small prize.

It could be anywhere in between. So this is really fun because it's kind of random. It is a game.

And the kids get really excited because they want to be the ones to get their star pulled out of the cup. Now, one caveat to this, this actually happened. I did this with six different classes in a row.

And it didn't really come up until the last class. Well, what if there is a student that you have to talk to repeated times and their number gets called? Do they get to pick out of the prize box? And I wish I had gone over this before when I explained the game because that happened. I did have a student who was having a harder time.

Their name got called and it kind of wasn't fair. So that is something with your discretion that can be up to you that you can do as well. Now, I did something else when I was a STEM teacher.

It was different because I had that relationship. I kind of didn't really do an incentive like this, but I should have. But I've tried this with other classes that I have been in recently.

And the incentive of earning a prize is huge and all my classes have bought in and they're super into it. Can classes lose stars? Up to you and what your philosophy is with that. They could or they couldn't.

So definitely up to you, but play around with it. So that really is the game. It's very easy to manage.

And I actually packaged it all together. I have the print and go poster. I made this the morning before I was subbing for a STEM teacher one day because I needed something.

And so I made, I thought of this when I was walking my dog Frederick one day. And so the poster is very, very easy. The rocket's already big.

So you just print it out on normal paper. I put it on a poster and was good to go. So I have it all packaged in my TBDT shop and also linked in the show notes.

And I also walk through everything that I just explained for you that if you forget how to implement, it's all there. So as a little bonus for this episode, I actually have short audio that I'm going to play right after I'm done talking. But you actually get to hear me when I was explaining this to the class.

There were a lot of other things that were happening in between. I did keep, this is when I was subbing for a STEM teacher. I did also keep her incentives that she did in her classroom.

So that would be a really fun episode too, is gathering what do all of you do for behavior class incentives. So I'm going to keep that in mind for another question I need to ask, but there were some things going on. So if it sounds a little choppy, I did cut some things out, but you get to hear how I use this with, and it was a first grade class, but I did use this K through five.

This is behavior blast offs. You're going to play my game. So we have this rocket and some stars.

Let's see how many stars are up here. Ready? Five. Now, if you're doing a good job, you'll earn stars from me.

Every star you earn at the end of class, you guys know your cubby number, your classroom number, tell the person next to you what your number is. Thumbs up if you know your number. Right now there is one star because you came in and you listened really well.

So that means I will pull out one star and whoever's number I call, you get a pick from the prize box that I brought. You can earn up to five stars. So it's a game.

It's fun, but pretty cool. So you already have one out of five stars. So you want a five star rating.

Have you heard of that? That's good. So when you have a restaurant or like a hotel and it's out of five stars, if you say five out of five stars, this is great. We went to a restaurant, you guys, we have a one out of five stars.

It's not pretty fun, right? I did post this video on my Instagram. So it's also embedded in the show notes. So if you want to watch me when I was doing this, it's all there.

So I hope this helps. Don't make it overly complicated. Make it simple for you to understand, to keep up with.

Same with the students, for them to understand, for them to keep up with. And as long as it's a game and it's encouraging that positive behavior, something like this can really help in your classroom. Thank you so much for this question.

If you have any other questions, feel free to DM me or send an email my way. I love this two way street where I'm getting your input and all of your insights. And then I'm here in my home office by myself talking to my camera, but really makes me feel like that we are connecting in a different way.

Thank you so much. And I will see you in the next episode. Thank you so much for listening to today's episode of the elementary STEM coach podcast.

I would love to connect with you over on Instagram at Naomi Meredith underscore, or send me an email to elementary STEM coach podcast at gmail.com. Also make sure to check out my website, Naomi Meredith.com to see all the show notes from today's episode and shop my K through five STEM resources. Any questions you have needs for resources or ideas for episodes, get in touch. I'll talk to you soon.