Mystery Student

It's officially fall!  I can't believe that we are almost at the end of September already!  All of FIRST GRADE LAND from our school took a field trip to an apple orchard today and I think FUN was had by all!  Thanks to a great group of teachers, parent volunteers, and the staff of the orchard, everything went pretty smoothly!

One reason why I think everything went pretty well was because my kiddos knew the expectations for their behavior!  Classroom management is so incredibly important in and OUT of the classroom!

I wanted to show a small "system" I started a long time ago that is used in both settings: Mystery Student. There are variations of this floating around! 

Each student is given a number at the beginning of the year and that number is written on a stick.  I can pick one, sometimes two, sometimes even three students in the morning when our day starts. The students don't know yet who the mystery student is but find out at the end of the day!  In reality I'm watching all students, but the firsties think I'm watching only the "mystery students" during the day. I watch to see if good choices are being made, manners are being used, hard work is put forth, and rules are being followed,  At the end of the day, the mystery student(s) is/are announced and they are awarded 10 tickets each.  We have special tickets at our school that the students can save and use to buy something at the monthly school store.  In the picture, you can see that as a "reward" you can give raffle tickets, a certificate, sticker, etc. to say "AWESOME JOB" or how proud you are of them for having a great day!  What's even better is, the rest of the class ALWAYS cheers for the mystery students.  This has been such a positive way for students to work extra hard throughout the day and a way for the class to be a team and cheer their friends on!  

Let me know if you have put something like this to use in your classroom or what you do to create positivity and how you set clear expectations in your classroom!