34. The Kindergarten Reward System That Doesn't Require a Prize Box

Does a kindergarten reward system really need a prize box, classroom money, or complicated points to keep students motivated? Some of my kindergarten students' favorite classroom rewards didn't cost me a single penny.

In this episode, we're talking about how to use simple whole class rewards to reinforce positive behavior in kindergarten without creating another classroom management system you have to keep up with. You'll learn why free classroom rewards can be just as motivating for five- and six-year-olds, how focusing on one behavior at a time helps students understand the goal, and why the visual component of a reward system can make such a big difference in student buy-in.

If you're looking for a kindergarten reward system that's simple for you, easy for students to understand, and doesn't require you to keep a prize box stocked, this episode is for you.

Resources Mentioned in This Episode:
🏗️ Build-a-Reward Characters Bundle
🔗 Show notes: https://kindergartentoolbox.com/kindergarten-reward-system-without-prize-box-episode-34/

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What if I told you that some of my kindergarten students' favorite classroom rewards didn't cost me a single penny? No candy, no tiny toys, no trips to Target Dollar Spot, and definitely no prize box that I had to remember to keep stocked. Because a kindergarten reward system doesn't have to mean buying more stuff or managing complicated points and classroom dollars. Today we're talking about how I used a simple whole class reward system to reinforce positive behavior in kindergarten and the easy system I created to make those rewards visual, motivating, and actually manageable for real five and six-year-olds. Welcome to the Kindergarten Toolbox Podcast. I'm your host, Amy Murray, here to help you simplify kindergarten with tools and strategies that actually work with real live five and six year olds. Let's dive into your shortcut to calmer days and more confident writers. Sometimes when we hear the word reward, we immediately think of stuff and things. We think of prize boxes filled with toys, erasers, stickers, candy, treasure chests, you get it. Or maybe we're thinking about classroom money and stores or tickets that you have to pass out and students save and then buy things with what they've earned. And listen, if you love your prize box and it works for you, I'm not telling you to throw it away. But I definitely don't think that you need to have one for successful classroom management in kindergarten. Because when I think of things that my kindergarten students got really excited to earn, so many of them didn't cost a thing. Extra recess, huge. A dance party, they thought that was the best thing ever, and it only took five minutes of my time. Bring a stuffed animal to school, amazing. Show and tell. We often didn't have time for it, so using it as a reward was perfect. Extra time to draw or play a classroom game, fun Friday. All free things. And none of those required me to go to the dollar spot and spend 30 bucks filling up plastic bin with tiny things that probably end up going home and getting thrown away, anyway, if they're not lost on the floor of mom's minivan. The thing that we forget is that five and six-year-olds, they don't need a reward to be expensive in order for it to feel special. It just has to be something that they care about. This is why it's so important to really know your students. A reward that one class thinks is absolutely amazing might not be what the other class really wants to work for. Maybe your students would do just about anything for an extra dance party or they love to draw or have extra free time. Maybe they love their stuffies and can't wait to bring a stuffed animal to school to show their friends. You don't need a Pinterest list of a hundred different classroom rewards, and you definitely don't need to offer lots of options all at once. What you do need to know is what your students want to work for. And that sometimes you can just ask them and make a list and brainstorm together. And from that list, you can windle it down to a couple of options. Two or three works best. You can let them vote so they have some ownership, and now they've helped choose the reward, which gives them even more buy-in, and you haven't spent a penny. I think that's an important reminder when we're talking about kindergarten classroom management. Motivating them doesn't have to be expensive. It also doesn't mean complicated. Rewards should not create another job for you. Because the other thing I see happen far too often is classroom incentive systems that take up so much time and are so complicated that nobody really understands what's happening. Maybe we're handing out points and keeping track of tickets, managing classroom money, saving, figuring out what saving even means, figuring out who earned what and when they're allowed to spend it and how, and then there's the prize box that you have to buy the prize boxes for, remember to keep it stock. All of the things take time, money, and energy that you do not need to spend. That is a whole lot of work for classroom management that's supposed to be making your life easier. And if you're new here, this is how I feel about all classroom management systems. If it's too complicated for you to use consistently, it's probably not going to work. So I needed to make something really simple for my own classroom. I wanted my students to know what they were working toward. I wanted them to be able to see it. I wanted to keep them excited and bought in. And I wanted them to be able to see the progress that they were making so they knew how much more they needed to earn to get to the reward. And I did not want another thing that I was going to have to manage all day long. And that's really where our build a reward behavior systems came from. Because one of the other truths about kindergarten is if they can see it, they are much more likely to understand it. So making the reward something they can see made all the difference for us. One of the things that makes rewards difficult for kindergarten students is the end goal can feel pretty abstract, especially, especially if it's like a bingo board or a raffle or something left up to chance. It can feel abstract and honestly downright unfair. Even when we tell them you need to earn 50 tickets and then you'll get whatever it is. A lot of kids have no concept of what 50 is when they're in kindergarten because we're still teaching them numbers. But if they can see something, then we're speaking their language. And that's what happens in our build a reward system. The class is literally building a picture or a character of some kind to work towards their reward. So for example, if we're building a box of crayons, we're adding a crayon until the crayon box is full. When all the crayons are in the box, then they know they've earned the reward. They can see how many crayons are in the box, and they can see how many are left to earn. That is concrete. That makes sense. And honestly, our build a reward system is filled with adorable clip art and characters, and that makes a big difference too in keeping them bought in and excited. They're always excited to see what the next theme might be, and you can change out those themes all year long while still keeping your behavior system consistent. That makes it easier for everyone. The other thing that makes the biggest difference is also paired with a visual. It's choosing one behavior to focus on at a time. A blanket, be good, or waiting for class compliments from somebody else that you have no control over is not a strong behavior system. But if your class is really struggling with sitting quietly or working quietly, work quietly can be a goal. What about walking in the hallway? Are you running? Are you having trouble with the lining up procedures? Focus on that. Maybe it's using kind words and being good friends. There are goals for that as well. Pairing that specific goal with a picture helps to hold everyone accountable. And anyone who walks in your room can see what the goal is and what students need to do or how many pieces they need to earn in order to get to that reward. One of the biggest questions I'm asked by teachers about our build a reward system is how often do you give them a piece? And that's really going to depend on your specific classroom. If it is something if you're working on something like calling out, and it is happening all the time, you probably want to award a piece more frequently than once a day so that you can keep kids bought in. If you're working on something like kind words and you just want to check in at the end of each day and say, hey, how did we do with using kind words today? Did we earn a piece for our chart or did we not? That's perfectly fine too. It's really going to depend on your specific behavior needs and your class needs. But typically I would say you probably check in once, maybe twice a day, maybe once at lunchtime and once at the end of the day to see how things are going, and then award the piece or pieces as you need to. And please, I know how tempting it is. Please do not take pieces away. They've earned them. No one is coming and finding you when you make a mistake at work. Please don't take pieces away from your students. They've earned them, they stay. Okay? They just might not earn the next one if they're not working quietly next time. It really erodes trust if you start to take those pieces away. And what if your whole class isn't doing that? That's okay too. Let's say you're working on remembering to raise your hand before they speak, right? So you don't want them to call out. You can award a piece because Johnny did it, even if Ava forgot, right? Or if you're working on using kind words, the important part is catching the kids who are using kind words and trying to snowball that into a whole class effort. And it really does work. When you start to focus on the positive, it becomes pretty contagious pretty quickly. And remember, when they earn all the crayons in the crayon box example, then they get the reward. And that reward can be as ridiculously simple as you'd like and preferably free. And then you can do this chart every day if you want. It can be filled as often as you need because you're not giving away prizes every time they fill it up. From the teacher's perspective, I love that once the builder reward charts are prepped, you can pull them out anytime and use them over and over for years to come. When I prep them, I print them, laminate them, and then cut them out, and I add velcro dots to the back, and then that's it. They're prepped and ready to use. Some of these are uh seasonally themed, some of them you can use any time of year, and you can just pull out what is going to motivate your students next. And honestly, the reward is great, but building the picture is almost as exciting, and that's where the magic lies in our build a reward system. So if you've been listening to this thinking, okay, this is the kind of reward system I want to use in my classroom, you don't have to go make it yourself. I already did that part for you. Our build a reward system gives you more than 50 adorable rewards you can print, prep, and use over and over again with your students. So if you're listening to this thinking, okay, this is the kind of reward system I want to use in my classroom. You don't have to go make it yourself. I've already done that part for you. And our build a reward system, our characters bundle, is linked down below in the show notes. It includes more than 25 adorable visual incentive charts that you can print, prep, and use over and over again with your kindergarten students. You choose the behavior you want your class to focus on. You can even use the editable behavior and reward card options if you'd like. Choose a reward that'll actually work for your classroom. And remember, it can be completely free. And then your students get to watch their builder reward picture come together piece by piece as they work toward their goal. There's no prize box to stock, no classroom store to manage, no points for you to keep track of, and you're not going to be sitting at your computer next weekend trying to make a new chart because it's already done for you. Print the builder rewards incentive charts, prep them once, and then you have a simple visual reward system you can pull out whenever your class needs a little extra motivation. And because there's so many different themes included in this bundle, you can switch them out throughout the year to keep your students excited and keep it feeling fresh and new without having to change the entire system. So save yourself a trip to the Target Dollar spot and definitely don't spend your Saturday night making this all from scratch. So head down to the link in the show notes and grab the Build a Reward Characters bundle for your kindergarten classroom. Get it prepped now, and then the next time your class needs a little extra motivation, you'll already have a simple system ready to go. Your kindergarten classroom rewards don't need to be expensive or complicated to work. They just need to be simple, visual, and sometimes really stinking cute. I cannot wait to hear how these are working in your classroom, so find me on Instagram or send me an email. Send me some pictures. Let me see how these are working in your classroom. Until next time, have a great week. Thanks for listening to the kindergarten toolbox. I'm Amy Murray and I'm so glad you're here. Be sure to check the show notes for all the links and resources from today's episode. For even more tips, tools, and support, head to teachingexceptionalkinders.com or connect with me on Instagram at Teaching Exceptional Kinders. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow along and subscribe to the show and take a minute to leave a review. It helps other kindergarten teachers to find us too. Teaching kindergarten is tough, but you're not alone. Here's to calmer days and more confident writers. You've got this