Tokens For Behavior - Tried It Tuesday

I have been loving learning about all the ideas other teacher's have tried in their classrooms (as I hope you have as well!), so I am linking up again this week with Fourth Grade Flipper for Tried It Tuesday.

This year we have a new Vice Principal and she has been FABULOUS!  I may be a slightly bit bias since I worked with her at another school a few years ago, and she did write one of my letter of recommendations for my current position, but really having her at our school this year has been amazing!  When she first started at our school she asked us to complete a survey to see what our concerns and needs were.  What was already working and needed to stay in place thank you very much, and what we desperately wanted to change.  I really loved that she asked our opinion before making widespread changes as can sometimes happen with new admin.  Anyway, one thing we begged to change was school wide behavior.  Most of us had no problems with classroom management INSIDE our own classrooms, but, when the little sweethearts traveled through the school outside of our watch (cafeteria, hallways, bathrooms, recess, etc.) they did not always follow the rules or listen to other teachers or staff.  So, she shared an idea that she had used at our prior school and we agreed to try it, so this is my Tried it Tuesday share:

When students are out and about and caught following the rules a teacher or staff member gives them one of these tokens.  The trick is, we are only allowed to give them to students in classes that are not our own.  The student then brings the token back to the classroom where the teacher keeps them until they accumulate 100 tokens.

She got these tokens at Oriental Trading Company here.

We use this token jar in our classroom (to match this year's Peanuts theme). 

 I have added my own little spin by having the student share with the rest of the class what they did to earn the token.  Some examples might be:

                                      "I was walking quietly in line."

                                      " I cleaned up my place in the cafeteria"

                                      " I picked up trash on the playground without being asked"

I feel like this allows the other students to hear ways that THEY can be caught being good.

We also add some mental math practice by figuring out in our heads how many more tokens we need to get to 100.

When the students reach 100 tokens in a class, the class as a whole earns a special party with the Vice Principal during lunch where they sit at a decorated table and have a special dessert (ice cream, otter pops, hot chocolate, etc).  They also earn 15 extra minutes recess (that the teacher also earns extra time because the VP is taking that duty time! Woo hoo!).

I don't know if this idea would work at your school or not, but I could also see using it in the classroom as a rewards system.  I have seen Brownie Points ideas and this might work in place of that as well.