Whether morale at your schoolhouse is in a skilful place (and y'all'd like to go along it that way) or yous tend to discover yourself scraping morale off the floor with a spatula, here are some ways to bring in merely a little more fun this coming school twelvemonth, both inside the classroom and around campus.

1. Requite out rewards that aren't actually rewards (only kind of are).

I'one thousand conflicted virtually extrinsic motivation, and so I've found a compromise, which is this: Focus on developing intrinsic motivation, just provide occasional rewards … in the form of inexpensive, bizarre little trinkets that I pretend are of import.

It all started my second yr of instruction when I discovered a store that sold stickers of realistic photos of vegetables, and my first thought was how great they would be on meridian of students' papers. When I started distributing the veggie stickers for good behavior or noteworthy progress, students thought information technology was hilarious and began pasting them on the front of their journals, and from there it was over. We all knew the stickers had no value, and withal information technology was so fun to pretend that they were little agglutinative Nobel Prizes. The next year, several incoming students asked me on the first day if I was going to give out vegetable stickers. Information technology had become A Thing.

Eventually the store I went to stopped selling vegetable stickers, then now my become-to is this truly life-irresolute volume of random stickers that covers an impressive range of subjects, from mounted police officers to cheese slices to beluga whales.

Y'all can do the same thing with stickers, and I've known teachers who use colorful beads (students keep them on a strand throughout the yr), fun newspaper clips, little plastic trinkets—I managed to find pink plastic unicorns in the dollar section at Target last year. Anything that is inexpensive, fun and perchance just slightly off-kilter will work just fine.

Also, I heard from a teacher recently who rewarded middle school students by assuasive them to "babysit" her Hullo Kitty figurines over the weekend, and apparently it was a highly sought-afterward privilege. So, #teachergoals.

2. Start a thank-yous explosion.

Have you ever had a day (or two) (or 10) when everything seems to be dragging you lot downwards? When you lot detect yourself desperate for something to brighten your twenty-four hour period, elevate out some craft supplies or pencils and paper, ready a timer for 20 minutes, and accept your class make cards for a pupil or faculty fellow member that you know needs cheering upward or thanking. Sneakily leave the cards in the recipient'due south office mailbox or desk.

If your appraiser comes in and demands to know what y'all're doing, explain that you're developing literacy skills through character education. Or just offset throwing out educational buzzwords until they walk abroad. "Rigor relevance Sabbatum real-world technology digital citizenship. Flipped classroom. Differentiated."

iii. Host a co-worker competition.

Fitness competitions like losing weight or setting up challenges on Fitbit are fun, but other games and competitions can add together some much-needed fun to campus morale.

  • Wardrobe claiming: Who can go the most sequent days wearing all one color to work?
  • Plant a "rolling chair just" policy of traveling inside campus afterward school. If you're stuck with a long to-practise listing, y'all might equally well brand the commute down the hall and to the copy room a fun one.
  • Give out a prize for the best yearbook picture (bonus points if y'all tin get the teachers around you in the alphabet in on it). Meet these geniuses for inspiration.
  • If there's a team job that needs to exist done that nobody wants to do, make it into a competition. It tin be a physical claiming (wall-sit competition), a mental game (Sudoku race), a boxing of will (hand in a cup of ice), or other game that creates a loser simply has everyone laughing in the process.

4. Create a "Humans of New York" account for your schoolhouse.

With your principal's permission (and media permission slips from parents/students), create an Instagram or Tumblr account similar to the popular photoblog Humans of New York. For each post, cull a student and interview him or her, take a photo, and mail service the picture with a snippet of something they said during the interview. It'south a great mode to highlight kids and their stories, and would also brand a peachy department of a school newspaper.

For an example of a school HONY-esque business relationship, check out Humans of KIPP Austin Obras!

What's your favorite manner of bringing fun to your campus?

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