BAM… and Whole Brain Teaching Week 2

Just this past Friday was the second time my students had the opportunity to turn in their BAM's for Treat Tokens. (Want to read more about my BAM’s then click here.) They were all so excited! Many of them had been working so hard for the past 2 weeks trying to earn BAM’s so that they could trade them in for a specific Token that they had in mind.

I began by calling students up in groups of 3 with their BAM containers. They then looked over the 3 sheets I have that list Tokens that cost 5 BAM’s, 10 BAM’s or 15 BAM’s.  
Of course, the more valuable Tokens such as NO Homework, Free Time, or Back Up (on your behavior card) are worth the most because they are such a Hot Commodity in 3rd grade! Only a few students had enough BAM’s to by either of these. But that’s okay, it gives students something to work for.
The most popular Token which was a suprise to me was the Lunch Bunch Token. The person who has this token can trade it in for lunch in the classroom with yours truly :0) and with 2 friends of their choice! At least 4 students chose this token… it seems like my kiddos never cease to amaze me.
In case you’re wondering how I store my Tokens it’s simple… Baseball Card Pocket Page Protectors that I purchased at Office Max. It’s funny but they used to house my coupons when I was coupon crazy. Now it’s where I neatly store my Tokens. 
Moving on to my update on Week 2 of Whole Brain Teaching… things couldn’t be any better. My students are doing FANTASTIC at answering when I call CLASS. I can even say CLASS when we are in the halls and it’s amazing how they all respond. Even when I whisper it. It must be because whenever they do a great job they earn points on our class scoreboard (happy/not so happy face) and they have finally realized that it is tied directly into deciding whether we have free time, extra free time, or no free time. I must say that my 3rd graders LOVE their free time. So after 2 days of no free time they have been working so hard as a TEAM to earn their reward. I’ve also added a new rule. If we are able to earn 10 “Oh Yeah” points as we call them then everyone in the class earns a BAM! So needless to say we are big on TEAMWORK in this class.
Well that’s all I have for today! Have a wonderful day!
XOXO,