Help Reward My Eager Readers!

Celebrating Hispanic & Latinx Heritage Month

This project is a part of the Hispanic & Latinx Heritage Month celebration because it supports a Latino teacher or a school where the majority of students are Latino.

My Students

We all know what it's like to do our best and feel the disappointment when our work is never recognized or celebrated. It's the same for my All-Star students. They constantly work hard and have incredible achievements, but never get enough recognition. Well, we are going to put an end to that!

I teach 57 English Language Learners at one of the largest schools in the area (over 1,300 students!).

They are some of the most driven, tenacious, and curious young learners that I have ever met. Despite their hard work, they are still reading, on average, about two grade levels below where grade level. This means we have to gain at least two years of reading in the short 10 months we have in fifth grade. Therefore, it is absolutely necessary that every waking moment in our class must be spent on learning how to be better readers, writers, and thinkers.

My Project

Now complete focus, 100% of the time, is not an easy task! Neither is always making sure your homework is done, always making the right choices, and always getting to school on time. This is why I'm making it a point to reward those who do their absolute best - every week - on homework, behavior, effort, and attendance. On Fridays, students who earn at least 17 out of 20 points on their progress reports will be able to participate in the "MVP Party", a weekly event when they will able to play with these board games like taboo, monopoly, chess, apples-to-apples, and vocabulary bingo. Also, the "Super-Stars" of the day will be able to do their independent reading on the bean bag chairs in the library. Finally, the best behaved team will receive a weekly "homework pass". These items (board games, bean bags, and homework passes) are exactly what we need to help give incentive to great achievements in the classroom. This is how we can truly reward hard-work!

My All-Stars understand the necessity of an education for future opportunity.

They are motivated, very simply, by becoming smarter! But every once in awhile, its nice to be celebrated for GETTING smarter. These board games, homework passes, and bean bag chairs are exactly what we need to reward the All-Stars for their hard work. Please help me celebrate and motivate my students with these awesome incentives!