Monday, October 7, 2013

Art Stars in the Art Room: Clip system for good behavior

I have used a variation of a rainbow or point system for several years to motivate students positive behavior in the art room.  I recently revamped my classroom behavior chart to ART STARS!

All of the classes begin on yellow each week.  Yellow is also known as The Fridge Door (your momma loves you). It is neutral territory.  The class is marked with a clothespin and photograph of their classroom teacher. Students can automatically get bumped up to green, one star, if they come into the room with voices on zero, hands folded, and sitting in their correct seat.  Every single child needs to do this, or no bump.

Green is also known as Buzz! and as I said, is worth one star.  In the art world an artist might start creating buzz, but if they don't keep on practicing, it could fade quickly!

It's easy to move up to two stars, or blue, Rave Reviews (the critics love you!).  If students can work in silent art studio for 15 minutes, they get bumped up.

The accolades will not last for long if some students cannot work quietly.  In fact, you could even lose the star you have already earned!

Sometimes classes want to continue working in silence, so they can get bumped up to purple, three stars, SOLO EXHIBIT! (you did it, congratulations!)

The solo exhibit may be the artist's ultimate goal - but believe it or not, you can go beyond that to become an ART STAR!  Yeah, students can earn up to four stars in one hour.

However stars are earned or loss is up to you.  If a class is really not behaving, they could end up on UGH! (go back to art school).  If this is the case, I actually remove one of their tallied stars from their board.

My rewards vary, but it remains a competition between classes to the end of the year.  A class that earns six stars earns centers time.  Nine stars equals "pride tickets"- my schools money. Twelve stars is more centers time, 24 stars, they get to choose their own seats... etc...  The class who has the most at the end of the year earns a popcorn party.  Yup, I make them wait until the end of the year.

Every year this system works perfect with fourth and fifth grade.  Third grade can never get it together.
At my primary school I do not keep a chart of earned stars.  They get awarded daily with tickets or stickers for earning stars.




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