How To Motivate Students to do their Best Work in 2015

Looking for ways to get the best work out of your students in 2015? Here are a few things you can do to motivate them to give their best effort.

Set Goals- Goal Setting is a great motivator for students of all ages. Each individual student should have goals to reach that meet their specific learning abilities. You can even make class goals! To make this even more effective, you can make a goal sheet so that the goals become visual to the students. They will enjoy seeing themselves climb to new heights and reach each goal along the way. Incentive pads are a great way to inspire and track progress as well!

Show Enthusiasm!- Your Students will be inspired by your excitement. By showing enthusiasm, students will feed off of your attitude and mimic your excitement. You can also get them excited about learning by making things fun! Turn the activity into a game or an art project. You can even allow students to work together as a team. They will then be inspired by one another to do their best!

Expect Their Best Work- Let students know that you are aware of their potential and that you want to see their very best effort. You can create a positive competition by having children compete with their best record or best score. Make sure that you allow a chance for improvement when they fall short. You can give them feedback that will encourage their best work and help them to obtain it. Be careful not to discourage and always keep it positive!

Give Praise- When students give their best work, let them know! Be specific when telling them what you like or when you see improvement. Make sure to give praise when effort is being made. This will inspire students to continue in their work and not give up on it.

Reward Good Work- Students love to be rewarded for their hard work. This can be achieved in several ways. You can give prizes like stickers, badges and awards or hang good work on the wall for all to see. Maybe they get to go to the treasure box or even attend a special pizza party during snack time. They will love earning prizes and bringing things home to show Mom and Dad.

Indoor activities for Preschoolers

Little ones can get antsy quickly when they are kept inside all day. They need a good activity to help them get their wiggles out and to keep you, teacher or parent, from going a little crazy too. Here’s a fun one that students are guaranteed to enjoy!

Create an indoor obstacle course!

You can even let your students help you create it. All you need is a room with enough space to play, a few obstacles for students to pass through, and a lot of team spirit to cheer on your class as they make their way through the course.

Start by making sure that the area you are placing your obstacle course in is clear and safe for the students. This might mean moving a table or two or making sure items are picked up off the floor. Next you can begin to construct your course.

Obstacles can be created from anything you want. You can easily use items around your classroom or in the toy chest. You could even incorporate some class material. For example, they could write their name in cursive or complete a math problem on a sketch pad as one of the obstacles. The possibilities are endless when it comes to the obstacles you choose! This also allows you to create a new course every time. Students will be excited to see what you’ve come up with on rainy days. Plus, it’s a great way to make sure they are getting their daily exercise.

Here’s an example course:

 Hula hoop 5 times, crawl underneath the table, circle a chair 3 times, correctly answer the math problem, do 10 jumping jacks, go down the slide, make a basket in the basketball goal and sit down. The first team to have everyone through the obstacle course and seated quietly wins!

Foamnasium products are great for indoor play and obstacle courses!

Be sure to check those out HERE!

If you need to keep the noise level to a minimum, have your students cheer silently. The faces and expressions are sure to make you giggle as they cheer on their team without making any sounds! This will allow them to show their team spirit, maintain good sportsmanship and not disturb nearby classes at the same time.

Planning on trying out an indoor obstacle course? We want to see what you come up with! Send us pictures of your course and you may see yours featured in a future post! Stay tuned for more indoor activities and ideas for those yucky weather days.

Student Incentives: Arm Charms

Need a new way to reward you students for their hard work? Try out the Arm Charms! Stickers may start to get old after a while but Arm Charms are a motivator your kids will love! Arm charms take inspiration to a new level with their fun phrases, colors and artwork. Plus, they can be worn for much longer than a sticker because they wrap around the wrist like a bracelet for motivation all day long!

Arm Charms come in packs of 72 bracelets so you will have plenty to keep the motivation going in your classroom. The adhesive seal gives a secure fit to the Arm Charm so you can be sure that it will make it home so parents can be proud of their students hard work too!

Peanut School Decorations

I love EVERYTHING Peanuts! But….. who doesn’t!

Back to school time reminds me of Peanuts. We are now offering a great variety of items that work perfectly in any classroom. Whether you are looking to create a specific bulletin board for your classroom, or if you just want cute stickers to put on papers that you are grading, purefunsupply.com has a great variety of items.

When creating a bulletin board remember the basics. Always start with an eye catching back ground color. It should match the items that you are going to be putting on top. For example if you want to make a bulletin board about setting goals, first check out this great goal banner (Peanuts of course!)

I would make my background color Yellow to make the few yellow pictures pop! Then i would make the banner the main focus of my board. Use large block letters to make a catchy phrase. Then find other bulletin board sets that will make your board pop.

Leave a space for students to write their goals and then you can post them to the board! Help your students learn how to track their goals and celebrate them when they achieve them!

 

Happy Back to School!

For all your back to school decorating supplies, visit us today at www.purefunsupply.com!

4 Simple Ways to Motivate Young Learners

Children are born with an intrinsic motivation to learn and positive attitude towards learning. Positive rewards and reinforcement will increase this motivation. Here are several simple strategies that you can use as a teacher to keep young students interested and motivated to learn.

Provide praise and rewards. When your students do well or when they work hard, reward them. Positive words and stickers are great for simple tasks. Adjust your praise and rewards based on the child’s individual abilities and efforts. Avoid giving nonspecific praise for something that required little or no effort.

Show you care about your students. Kids respond well when they know that their teacher cares about them. Build a positive and caring relationship with your students. Ask them how their day is going. Show enthusiasm for their interests.

Have your students participate. When children feel needed, their self-esteem and motivation is increased. Job charts are great way to teach responsibility.

Provide good explanations. Nothing kills motivation as quickly as confusion. Take the time to thoroughly explain new concepts. Check for understanding with specific questions before moving on to a new topic.