How to get young students do their homework constantly?
If you need new ideas and strategies to motivate your students to get their homework done regularly, that’s a good idea for you.
The goal of homework, besides practicing what is being learned, is to is to build responsibility and discipline, especially for the young students but, how to motivate the pupils to work consistently? I’ll show you one of my favorite strategies: The Buddy Bucks Strategy
How does it work?
- Print out some dollar ( or other currency ) bills, 1, 2, 5, 10, 20, 50 and 100. I printed mine in light green paper to look like dollar bills. The kids loved it. 😃
- In the beginning of the semester distribute to the children 200 bucks: 1 bill of 100, 1 bill of 50, 1 bill of 20, 1 bill of 10, 2 bills of 5, and 10 bills of 1.
- Ask them to count and put it inside an envelope with their names on it. The envelope is handed to the students in the beginning the classes so they can manage their savings, pay the teacher, if necessary, and receive any amount gained, but they must return it to the teacher at the end of it.
- Explain the value of the bucks: tell them that they are receiving a saving account to manage during the semester.
What are the rules?
They start the semester with 200 bucks in savings and the ones who have the biggest amount in the end of the semester will be rewarded.
Make sure the prize is something they really like, otherwise they will see that the whole work wasn’t worth.
The students who didn’t save enough must also get something.
I never reward one single student for any cause. I believe everyone has his one value and timing, it’s just a matter of how to get it, so everyone must always be rewarded, and more than that, they must know why they are being or not recognized for.
The teacher will have a good judgment to establish the best prizes for everyone. For example, I give a basket of chocolate for the biggest savings and a smaller one for the others, with a nice encouraging message.
- Every time someone don’t bring their homework done, or any other task, he or she has to pay an amount ( 1 ou 2 bucks ) to the teacher, the teacher will stipulate the price according to their needs, just make sure they won’t be out of cash before expected.
- Then every time they don’t do some task they are supposed to, they have to pay.
- Add any other necessary rules according to your needs, but remember, the idea is for the students to pay when you don’t work, not to get paid when they do, as it is their primary obligation.
Here are the bills for you to download:
What is the goal of this game?
The basic conditions to keep the money will be stipulated by the teacher, but it is good to make some agreements with all the class to increase their sense of responsibility and community rules as they helped build them.
It’s really interesting to see their reactions when they have to pay for something they know they should have done. The idea here is not to pay the students when they do something they should have done, but the opposite, it is to make them pay and see they lose something when don’t, such as the homework.
Working with money in the classroom?
You might wonder if putting the value of work on money could make the students overvalue it, but if you work along with the idea, they will learn and see that the value is not on the money itself, but the real value is in what they lose when they don’t commit to something important and how they feel about it.
In the end of the semester the teacher checks the amount of money of each student and the ones with the biggest amount of savings get the prize promised in the beginning.
How to reward the students?
We teachers are always giving prizes and rewards to the best students and we all get used to it. This is an idea of making them see the results of their own work.
It is really important to monitor the game during the semester checking the students’ progress, giving the chance of the ones who lost money to get it back, in a fair way.
For example: It’s Valentine’s day, ask the students to search about the history of Valentine’s and tell them this task is worth 5 bucks. There are many other ways to help them to see that everybody has the same chances to have a nice saving in the end.
Well, that is my idea. It really works for me and I believe it will work for you too. You may change or adapt the idea in any level for any kind of students, even for adults if you have a full class. They love games, too.
if you have any questions or need any help, don’ hesitate in telling me.😍
I hope you like it! Have fun!!
Need more fun ideas?
Fun with music: for all ages