Recognizing Every Child

We use PBIS as our school-wide (and district-wide) behavior management tool. Among other initiatives, we have Cougar Cash that we can pass out to students when we catch them upholding our PAWS Promise, and we also have Paws Applause postcards we can mail home to encourage students. We are all about recognizing the positive behaviors of all our students!

But if I'm being honest, I often find myself rewarding the same great students over and over, not finding anything to reward for some of my challenging students, and overlooking the students who are my "middle of the road" kids. I wanted to develop a system that would help me do two things:

1. Be consistent about positive reinforcement.
2. Recognize ALL students.

I came up with a sticky note system to help keep myself on track. Here's how it works:

1. I have a folder for each of my four blocks.

2. Inside each folder, I place a sticky note for each of my students in that class.

3. As I catch my students doing something great, I write them a message on their sticky note. I attach the message to some Cougar Cash.

4. Before giving the sticky note and Cougar Cash to the student, I write a Paws Applause postcard to send home. I try to do this for two students per block each week so that students are receiving positive reinforcement from me frequently. And of course, if needed, I can do more than that!

5. I don't add any new sticky notes to my folder until I've given ALL students a message and a Paws Applause postcard! When a folder is empty, I'll start the class over with a new set of sticky notes. This helps me know that all students have been recognized!