Year 1 simple reward ideas

[Terraincognita]

Hi, I started teaching Year 1 last term and I was planning to have a kind of reward chart system but it didn't work out, many of them are ESL (am in an international school) and immature, first time at school etc. I just used stickers to motivate them most of the time and gave out certificates in assembly.

This worked ok but I feel like I could now do something to motivate them a bit more. Some of them need to be pushed to try a bit harder and some of them have some behavioural issues which need ironing out. I know one of my colleagues uses a golden ticket system where they get tickets for achievements/ good behaviour etc and then get put into a weekly draw for a prize. I like this idea as it is simple and seems effective but I want to do something different. Does anyone have any suggestions for an alternative system which I can easily explain and implement starting from the first week back?

DS's school has a marble jar where marbles are put in or taken out for poor class behaviour or good class effort, then the whole class gets a reward (e.g. free play). Peer pressure might help the stragglers?

when I had a mix of year1/rec children with all kinds of different needs, the best thing I did was based on an individual sticker chart. Basically I had loads of simple black and white pictures with 10 circles on each child had a picture on a display and if they did something that could be rewarded with a sticker they stuck it on their picture. once they had 10 stickers they could choose something from the prize box. They could then take picture home. Children loved this and it moved quite quickly, you rewarded evetyones strengths and children who sometimes get missed our with rewards were able to get a prize.
I have used the golden ticket but don't like it as the only system in classroom. I've used it as a whole system which was better.
The worst reward system I used was the one were each child had their picture with a hat on and space on hat for four stickers to be stuck on using Velcro. During the day if they got a star they put it on their hat if they got four they had a prize but the next day everyone started with no stars again. Children did get missed out on that one. It wasn't my idea to use it but came from above!

Thanks, I have started the sticker charts and they are keen, I just need to get some prizes now!