practice cards levels

It is time to let you know that I have been using some of the WBT level scorebords to keep the game interesting and motivating for my students and I can say I am very surprise on how well it has been going on.   You might be asking yourself 

      "Which are those?" 

                                     Well, here they come.

"Practice card"                                                                                              
By the forth week of school, I had the chance to connect with my students well enough to know their individual academic goal and behaviors. This is why I began to use lever 2 scorebord "Practice card"

It really helped those kiddos that just can´t stop breaking the rules, helping them on extra practice and to understand that it is easier and more fun to follow the rules. 

How and what I needed to play this game?

This is what it looks like (White card)

Let´s see how to use these cards.
The white practice card. This card is given to the kiddo who just keeps on breaking the rule. You can either lay it on the table or place it into their pocket chart. This kiddo can be given a maximun of 2 cards but let me tell you, after the first one there is usually not a second one.

What happens then?

This kiddo will stay at breaktime for 2 minutes, no more than four, rehearing the rule. You will not belive how effective it is. It will seem forever those 2 minutes. A note will also be sent home allowing his parents to help him rehear the rule again with them.

As we are a bilingual school in Spain, Ana, my colleague made these great cards for us to use Check her blog:

It takes time to get into the correct path but there is a moment that it happens and we can help by using the  Purple practice cards.

A purple card canceled the effect of a white card and of couse we want to reward the kiddo. How?  
                                           Sending a congratulatory note home.

But.....sometimes the kiddo keeps breaking the rule . This is when we bring up a Green practice card.  We give it to the kid and say “You’re doing a great job with the Rule 3 and I really appreciate the effort you have put into practicing. I love to give you purple cards because I want you and your parents to know when you are into the classroom behavior. So, here is a green Rule 3 card.

Each time during class if you actually raise your hand for permission to leave your seat, I want you to color a star on the green card. At the end of the day, I’ll look at how many colored stars you have, showing that you have been following the rule. If I think you have been doing a good job, then you´ll have a good chance of earning a purple card." 

The green card is a simple way of guiding and praising their positive behavior.

 "Super improvers"

I introduced this level early in the year and I will continue throughout the remainder of the school year. I have chosen this because it rewards individual students for progress in any classroom activity motivating them to break personal records.

Let me tell you how I work it out. 

As you can see in this picture, it is a color coded scale from bottom to top. You can use a pocket chart, where pokets are labeled with students color code card name and 10 stars to be colored each time you consider they make  effort to their individual progress.

or as I do. Students have their individual chart in their agendas and each time they get up to 10 stars, they get the color code star set up.

Yes!!! They also get this reward.

This is not a competing agains each other, kids strive to set and break personal records in everything they do, from reading speed to room behaviors as well as to help challenging kids to focus on easy to improve negative habits.

Unfortunatly I had to go up another level called The independence. This new feature is a game that turns rebellious clique of students against each other. This level will divide the scoreboard in two, the whole class and the independent group. When any member of the independed group gets a frawny for breaking a rule, the independed group automaticly gets a white practice card for extra rehearsal. However, kids only stay in this group for a day and if they are willing to leave earlier, all they have to do to get out, is come to you and say "I don´t want to be in that independent group anymore!"

This helps students take a moral decision on learning to chose the right way.

Well, there is more about levels, just visit the WBT web site and before I finish off, let me tell you that these levels have helped me control challenging kiddos with no need to stop my lessons.

Wooohooo, I have reached heaven!!!