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Setting up a Cool Down Corner - a space to reset in class

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Setting up a Cool Down Corner - a space to reset in class

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Whether. you call it a Peace Corner, Taking Space, spot, or a Col Down corner, it's all the same, K-8 - a space for kids to reflect, rest and rejoin class right in a safe space in the classroom. This resource shows you how to get yours started and offers some freebies to get begin.

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The Peace Corner is a great place for all kids, K-8, to take space, reflect and reset in each classroom. Take inspiration from this video.

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Creating a Dedicated Space for Reflection

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Providing students with a quiet spot where they can calm themselves in times of stress helps them develop self-regulation.

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HMS & Team-Based  PBIS Incentives in Place

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HMS & Team-Based  PBIS Incentives in Place

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As an educator, you know how important Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS) can be to improve student behavior. In earlier blogs, we looked at ways that you can offer tangible PBIS rewards to your students. This time, we'll take a closer look at incentives that are suitable for middle school students!

As a middle school teacher for over 10 years, I know this age group has its own particularities, and I love them! For example, a sticker chart just won't cut it. You have to create incentives based on your students' interests! !

Of course, coming up with ideas takes time. That's why we've put together an extensive list that will save you the headache of doing it yourself!

27 practical PBIS rewards and incentives

Food is the way to a lot of peoples' hearts, including your middle school students. That's why going out for a healthy lunch is a logical incentive for good behavior. This can be as simple as going to a Subway restaurant or taking your students to a Chinese buffet. Pass the chopsticks, and don't forget to choose healthy options for PBIS food rewards!

2. Team-building sessions

Check for local team-building centers located near you. Activities like rope courses can be another great incentive to motivate students. Make it a group goal that can benefit the entire classroom community, too!

This motivating system promotes unity and positive interactions with peers - essential concepts for middle school students. And, according to research, team building promotes critical thinking and active learning.

We know you're busy. But before you roll your eyes at this one, you should know that a teacher playdate can be loads of fun if done well! You only have to plan one or two a year and you can lessen the burden by making this incentive something that you enjoy, too! Perhaps you're a fan of bowling or hiking - if so, great! View this PBIS reward as a win for both you and your students.

4. Students choose their seat for the day

As you know by now, kids hate assigned seats. Why not let your middle school students choose their own seats for a day? The behavioral motivation will skyrocket when they're given this extra bit of freedom. And, you won't have to lift a finger once your kids earn free seating! (Just note that you might want to make it temporary!)

Oh, the memories of middle school dances spent box stepping to All-4-One's "I Swear." Okay, a bit has changed since then - but middle schoolers still love school dances! So why not let your kids earn an extra one?

You can base this dance on behavioral points and make it a class goal.

6. Field trip to an amusement park

Dangling a trip to an amusement park will get any middle schooler's attention. Now, we're not talking about Disney World here - Six Flags or a local water park would work just fine!

The idea of a field trip, whether it's big or small, is bound to get your students excited about this classroom reward!

7. Chew gum!

I'll bet your students wish they could chew gum in class! Let them! As long as they realize they have to earn this privilege. Allow your students to chew gum for a day or a week in class - your choice.

This middle school PBIS incentive will stick and pop.

8. Pick the next assignment

Kids crave control. And like us, they want to make decisions. So why not let them pick the next assignment? You'll need to have guidelines in place, like providing them with a list of options they can choose from.

They'll be happy to earn more control over what they're learning, and you'll be glad to decrease your workload.

9. Mentor

Student mentors are useful, and kids enjoy being role models. Create an incentive that allows a middle school student to mentor a younger child. This could include helping them read, checking their work, etc. Middle schoolers are often eager to help. Let them!

10. Choose an outdoor class activity

Kids like to work outside. Heck, even we like to work outside. Allow a student to choose an outdoor activity, or let your entire class earn a day of lectures outside.

11. Extra recess

If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Yeah, that may not be the best grammar for an educator, but that's the way we feel about extra recess. An incentive that allows students to blow off steam is always a winner (and has been for years).

Tag - you're it!

12. Break choice

In the past, we've looked at some creative classroom management ideas that you can try with your students. And in that post, we discussed the importance of brain breaks.

Your students will learn more and enjoy class if you allow them to rest. For a reward idea that's easy as pie, let your middle school students choose the next icebreaker.

( Pssst, this is also a break for you!)

13. Hall monitor

Middle schoolers enjoy responsibilities, and being a hall monitor is oh-so wonderful! Even if you don't have a monitor system in place, you could choose one student to earn the job for a week.

Armbands: optional.

14. Locker switch

You probably have a few empty lockers in your school. If so, let the kids know those unused lockers are up for grabs for a locker-switch incentive!

After letting your rowdy middle schoolers know about this PBIS class reward, be prepared for silence and good behavior!

15. Extra computer time

Middle school students love technology, so why not allow them to earn extra computer time? Of course, you'll need to set guidelines, but the opportunity to hop online for a few more minutes of Classcraft will have the kiddos quiet in no time.

16. Pajama day

Middle schoolers (and teachers) like to feel comfortable. And what's more enjoyable than wearing a pair of pajamas to school as a PBIS reward? Your students will jump at the opportunity to sleep in for an extra 30 minutes.

17. Crazy hair day

Students will go crazy for the opportunity to jazz up their hair. Let them go nuts for a day and see what happens!

18. Drop a quiz grade

Students care about their grades. But life happens, and one way or another, a student may end up doing more poorly on a quiz than they should have. Give your students an opportunity to drop their lowest test score, and they'll jump for joy!

19. Class party

Give your class an incentive for a party and watch them pull together to make it work. They can chill out, eat a cookie cake, and listen to some tunes. Plus, this earned party would be a lesson you don't need to plan for.

Have you noticed that we're all about lessening your workload?

20. Teacher's helper

The term "teacher's helper" sounds important enough as it is - make it official! Allow students to become your trusty aide. They can hand out papers, choose the music at the beginning of class, erase the chalkboard, etc.

This may sound like a lot of work to you, but to a middle school student, it's an opportunity to move around during the day and act like an adult.

And again, this PBIS incentive helps you as well!

21. Piñata time

Who doesn't like a piñata? Fill it with goodies and place it behind your desk as a reminder of what your students can earn. Once they win, give 'em a bat and let them swing away!

Afraid of the sugar high? We get it - PBIS food rewards should be done in moderation and only if the food is healthy. Pro tip: Fill the piñata with funky pens, pencils, and erasers.

22. Take a hike

We've already mentioned that kids love to be outdoors - offer an incentive for a hike! Instead of sitting at their desks in class, your students can be on the Long Trail studying nature and roasting s'mores or having a picnic lunch while taking in the breathtaking views. Trust us - everyone will benefit from the fresh air.

23. Swimming

Warm weather calls for pool parties. What if you offered your students the opportunity to go to the local water park or pool? They'd earn that reward in no time.

24. School supplies

Have a box full of school supplies for easy and quick incentives. Examples include pencils, erasers, scissors, and anything else that your students constantly lose. Yep, count it - another teacher and staff win.

25. Tardy excuse

Punctuality, while desirable, is difficult in practice. Occasionally, students will be late. If you're tired of hearing another made-up excuse, why not give them a legit one? You'll still need guidelines in place, such as how late they can be - but getting one excused tardy could be an excellent incentive for many middle school students.

Plus, this one will make a few parents happy, too.

26. First one to leave

Students are excited at the end of the school day and may have trouble getting through the crowded halls. What if you offered a PBIS incentive for them to be the first one to leave that day?

Use their eagerness to your advantage!

27. Choose the next book

This sounds like an incentive just for English teachers, but it's not. Let kids earn the next book to read - within reason, of course (Chuck Palahniuk's Fight Club is a bit over middle schoolers' heads).

This PBIS award could work in any subject. For math, offer the option to read biographies of mathematicians: they earn the right to pick.

Of course, our vote goes to Einstein.

Make behavioral learning fun!

Middle school can be a hard time for students. They act out a lot because they're trying to find themselves during their physical and mental development. Take control of the situation and make student behavioral learning fun by using one (or more!) of these 27 PBIS incentives.

Good luck on your PBIS journey!
Photo: Google for Edu

Better middle school PBIS begins with better implementations

Download your free PBIS implementation guide to access best practices and an implementation checklist to build a better program in your middle school.

Download the guide now

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27 PBIS rewards for middle school students - Classcraft Blog

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As an educator, you know how important Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS) can be to improve student behavior. In earlier blogs, we looked at ways that you can offer tangible PBIS rewards to your students. This time, we'll take a closer look at incentives that are suitable for middle school students!

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Team Coggins - Donut Tix for Breakfast PRIDE Incentive

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Team Coggins - Donut Tix for Breakfast PRIDE Incentive

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Every student who earns a “Donut PRIDE ticket” will be invited to a special reward party.The ticket MUST be brought to Mrs. Coggins. EVERY Team Coggins student who earns at least one ticket,  will have a breakfast reward party on Thursday, April 27th WITH an activity of your choice.

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Take a minute to think about what a positive school climate means to you. How do the students behave? How do adults behave? What kinds of relationships do people have? Now, what do you think it would take for your school or district to get there?

Behavior is top of mind for educators across the country, and many school districts are implementing a PBIS framework ( Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports) to address student behavior through systemic change. According to the Center on PBIS , when the framework is implemented well, it benefits all facets of school life:

Students achieve improved social and academic outcomes.

Schools see fewer office discipline referrals and reduced use of exclusionary practices like suspensions.

Faculty and staff members feel more effective.

The three-tiered system starts with Tier 1 school-wide expectations and supports established for all students and educators across all settings. Tier 2 and Tier 3 provide more targeted interventions when students need additional support.

The PBIS interventions a school or district implements at Tier 1 set the foundation for the entire system. These interventions focus on setting clear expectations for behaviors, and implementing procedures and practices for teaching the emotional and social skills needed for positive behavior. Tier 1 practices rely on adults establishing the environment students need in order to succeed, and providing skill-building opportunities to address student misbehavior in a constructive way.

Here are five easy-to-implement Tier 1 PBIS intervention strategies educators can use to promote positive behavior in and out of the classroom:

1. Behavior-Specific Praise

2. Visual Aids

3. Positive Home Contact

4. Take a Break

5. Social Contract

1. Behavior-Specific Praise

How many times a day do you find yourself saying "Great job!" to a student? Probably more than you can count. While positive praise like this is reinforcing for some students, you can make an even more powerful impact by giving behavior-specific praise.

Behavior-specific praise acknowledges desired behaviors with specific language about the observed behavior and the student(s) you are praising. Nearly 30 years of research on behavior-specific praise has shown that it can increase positive behavior in the classroom and boost academic success.Behavior-specific praise helps students learn what positive, appropriate behaviors look and feel like, reinforces classroom expectations, and increases the likelihood of students engaging in expected behaviors in the future. This research-based strategy can be especially beneficial as a classroom management tool to address challenging behavior or disruptions, as it reinforces positive behaviors and makes repetition of desired behavior more likely in the future.

Behavior-specific praise includes three key components:

A description of a positive social or academic behavior

Specific identification of the student/group engaging in the positive behavior

Use of an authentic, positive, and warm tone of voice

You can use this strategy with any age group of students, from elementary to high school. The following are examples of behavior-specific praise:

"Table 2, thank you for taking out your math books when I asked!"

"Janelle, thank you for keeping your hands to yourself."

"Thanks for keeping your phones away during class, everyone. Today's lesson had some really important information, and it's great that you all paid close attention."

"Ezra, great job lining up quietly!"

It's important to note that some students are uncomfortable with being praised publicly and prefer one-on-one conversations. When giving behavior-specific praise to individual students, try to have these conversations in a more private setting.

2. Visual Aids

Visual aids serve as quick, consistent reminders for students that help them navigate life in the classroom: what supplies are needed for activities, the flow of the day, or behavior expectations. Educators can remind students to check the visual reminders, helping them develop independence instead of relying on asking teachers for information.

Visual aids can include:

Visual Timers: Many students, especially those who are still learning to tell time, do not have a strong understanding of time management. Using visual timers can show students how much time they have left to work on something, so when you say "five more minutes," they understand what that means! There are many options available for visual timers. You can choose to use a physical timer, or an online timer .

Visual Schedules : Writing the day's (or class period's) schedule on the board, or using accompanying pictures, can help students build independence, understand expectations, and ease anxiety for students who are unsure about what's coming next.

Visual Reminders: Are there certain supplies students need to keep with them during the day, or as part of a specific lesson plan? Maybe you have a list of classroom expectations you would like students to remember. Keeping visual reminders, like a photograph of the supplies needed or a poster of the expectations, can help students remember what is expected of them and develop positive habits.

3. Positive Home Contact
Courtesy of GiveThx
Tell a student's family something that you are grateful to their child for. Expressing thanks for a student's behavior to a student's family shows that the educator values the student and behavior. This reinforces both the behavior and the relationships between educator, student, and family.

Select a student to celebrate in this way. Think of something they did or a way they behaved that contributed positively to the class.

Call, text, or email the student's family. Share the student's positive action or behavior in the form of gratitude for what it contributed to the class. This action can be especially impactful for families who may expect critical communication from the school.

Leaving a phone message or writing an email provides the family with something concrete they can re-share with their child and refer back to.

Aim to make this a daily routine by contacting one family per day.

Get more ideas for building family partnerships with the Building Family Understanding of Social-Emotional Learning toolkit.

4. Take a Break

Brain breaks help reset our minds and bodies when we're feeling unfocused and allow us to get back to work. These breaks can be physical, like doing some jumping jacks or going for a quick walk, or mental, like a word puzzle or breathing exercise. Giving individuals or groups of students opportunities to take a brain break during the school day can replenish the attention, motivation, and energy levels needed to keep learning. Students also learn better when lessons are broken up into smaller segments.

The most effective brain breaks are intellectually stimulating and completely remove the student's thinking from the previous activity. This is especially important when using a brain break as a redirection from a distressing emotional situation, as some break activities aren't sufficient to keep a student from ruminating on the problem. In these situations, using mind puzzles like crosswords or Sudoku, or something physical such as following along with a dance video, can be helpful.

5. Social Contract

Courtesy of CharacterStrong

Establish an agreed-upon set of classroom values, expectations, and consequences that all students help create and sign. A social contract gives students a voice in creating their own class environment and deciding how their ideal class should look, sound, and feel. It also serves as a classroom management tool for addressing challenging behaviors with clear, logical consequences that the teacher and students have already agreed upon. Social contracts should be responsive to and inclusive of student needs.

Share Context About the Contract (5-10 minutes): Share with the class that, because you believe all people in the room should have a voice in how the class functions, you are all going to work together to create a set of classroom expectations. Explain that this will become a contract that everyone signs, and that it will be posted up as a reminder of what they created together and agreed to as norms.

Posing Questions for the Contract (5-10 minutes): Ask students to individually respond to the following questions. They can use both words as well as images to help paint a picture. (Remind students that they need to be realistic when responding because we really want to use their ideas.)

How do you want to be treated in class? What does that look/sound/feel like?

How do you believe I want to be treated as your teacher? What does that look/sound/feel like?

What does the ideal learning environment look/sound/feel like?

Group Work + Share Out: Have students share their ideas with each other and see if they can create a single inclusive vision for each question. Ask groups to share out as a class, asking a few students to volunteer to write the key words and phrases on the board.

Collaborate to Create the Contract: Work together as a class to summarize their ideas into a class contract that is posted on the wall, then have everyone in the class sign.

Want more Tier 1 strategies?
Download a PBIS intervention menu template in this toolkit!

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5 PBIS Interventions for Tier 1 to Use in Your District Today

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Explore 5 PBIS interventions for Tier 1 to support behavior work in your classroom, school, or district.

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Google Forms - create and analyze surveys, for free.

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Google Forms - create and analyze surveys, for free.

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Create a new document and edit with others at the same time -- from your computer, phone or tablet. Get stuff done with or without an internet connection. Use Docs to edit Word files. Free from Google.

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The home of Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS). FInd more information on PBIS, how to implement PBIS, get resources and materials, and how to get support. Funded by the U.S.

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Avoid power struggles Call parent or note home Card Flip Clear, consistent, and predictable consequences Do unfinished work during recess or unstructured time Have student say a nice thing to the student they called a name Logical consequence Natural consequences Office referral Reflection sheet Remove from room Speak in calm and neutral tone Take away privileges Take away unstructured or free time

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Team Coggins Donut PRIDE tickets for copying and student distribution, as earned.

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Create a new document and edit with others at the same time -- from your computer, phone or tablet. Get stuff done with or without an internet connection. Use Docs to edit Word files. Free from Google.

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When students have a good rapport with a staff person, you may send a positive note or phone call to that staff person about the student's accomplishment. The staff person you contact can then help to praise and encourage the student, creating good momentum.

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Team Coggins has created a team-wide opportunity in each class for kids to "take space" following common guidelines and routines.

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Team Coggins, $5 Gift Card PRIDE Incentive 

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Team Coggins, $5 Gift Card PRIDE Incentive 

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Each week the teachers on Team Coggins will be looking for students who are demonstrating PRIDE expectations. Each week a different PRIDE expectation will be highlighted. At the end of the week, team teachers will select 5 Team Coggins students who have exhibited that week’s PRIDE expectation all week. Those 5 students will earn a $5 gift card to a local restaurant or store.