Loss of Privileges

My comment goes along with Holly's ESSAY technique. I taught music to the two other first grade classes at my school. I wrote the word MUSIC on the board. I told them if they had any letters erased I would have to talk to their teachers and if they had all of the letters erased they would miss their recess that was right after music. If they didn't have any letters erased they would get to do a wiggle song at the end of class and I would tell their teachers how well they did. They did great! No letters were erased! I did the same thing with my class today. I used the word RECESS and for each letter that was erased that was one minute off of recess time. If all the letters were erased that would be no recess. If there were no letters were erased they would go a few minutes early to recess. They were quiet all the way up to lining up for recess. We had to erase one letter, so they missed a minute of recess. I really like this technique! I would not want to take away recess time because I need that time to myself, but I think my class likes recess too much to get all the letters erased. I have learned to never think they can't do something though!!