By Adrienne Wiggins
Montclair Elementary
Prince William County, Virginia
I was born and raised in Prince William County, Virginia and I am blessed to be teaching there today! This is my first year teaching 3rd grade and I am still at the wonderful school where I completed my graduate internship, Montclair Elementary.
Like many of you, ClassDojo has worked wonders in my classroom! I enjoy using the program and my kids’ behavior has definitely improved. Since I started using ClassDojo, my students work quietly without me even telling them because they know I could be looking to give points. Thanks to the ability to use my phone as a mobile remote, the students’ hallway behavior has completely turned around as well – we have started getting compliments 
My students love to see the +1 pop-up when a point is given, but I wanted to do more. I’ve put together a simple, yet incredibly effective, system to tie “Dojo points” to classroom rewards that I want to share with you today!
Here are some ways I’ve tied ClassDojo points to real-world rewards:
1. The privilege to play with special toys: Everyday the 2 highest point earners earn the right to keep the class squooshy balls at their desk the entire next day (They feel weird, kind of like stress balls). I got the first set of balls from the $1 aisle at Target, and recently found some shaped like animals at Five and Below. The kids love them!
2. The privilege to pick from my Dojo reward chart!: Every week, the 5 highest points earners get to pick a reward from my Dojo reward list (see below). Kids are allowed to pick from their weekly ranking and below. For example, the 3rd highest student can pick from category 3, 4, and 5! Here’s a picture of my rewards chart!:
3. The privilege to sit in a special seat: I also have two large fitness balls in my classroom and I use our school-wide behavior incentives to choose which two students will get to sit on them instead of chair for a day. The students love this and it would be a great reward for the top daily earners. As an added bonus, there is research that supports fitness balls contributing to higher scores because the constant movement keeps brains active.
4. The privilege of choosing avatars!: By starting all of my students with the same color avatar, I made avatar selection a reward! (To learn more about how to quickly set up a system like this, click here!)
It’s important to note that none of my rewards cost money (except for the spiffy pencil reward) yet they are still very effective at keeping my students motivated!
At the end of each week I reset points so the kids can start with a clean slate. I kind of fudge points here and there to make sure the same students aren’t winning every time and all students feel the goal is attainable.
Adrienne Wiggins teaches 3rd grade at Montclair Elementary in Prince William County Virginia. You can read more about her classroom on her blog, Wiggins World.
Interested in writing a guest post on the ClassDojo blog or filming a video for our YouTube channel? – Shoot us an email at hello@classdojo.com!