I thought I would kick things up a bit today and add some extra incentives - Mini M&M's!
(found in the baking aisle with the chocolate chips)
I wanted to do a thorough practice of special sounds with my Curly Girlie for her Phonics lesson. Since the list is getting quite large, I thought an incentive might be in order. But not wanting to load my kids up on junk, I thought the Mini M&M's would work quite nicely. So I grabbed the bag and we set to playing some games!
First, we would roll a dice to see how many special sounds she would read. If she got them all correct, she would earn that many M&M's. This was fun, because it broke down the list down into bite size pieces - lol, I hope I'm not the only one laughing!
Another way we played was to put a Mini M&M on each special sound. If she got it right she could eat it. If she didn't, she had to leave it there till she was done with the list and then come back and try that one again. Having my charts in sheet protects was a great thing - any smudges just wipe right off.
Later, My Little Buddy earned some Mini M&M's by doing his multiplication facts with me. For a little guy that thinks he's not very good at Math, he sure earned a lot of M&M's, which in turn boosted his confidence a bit.
And My Little Squirt couldn't be left out! We are working on following directions, so that's how he earned his Mini M&M's. I would give him simple tasks to do and he would run back to get his reward. It was like a combination of P.E., chores, and life skills all in one, with a bit of anatomy and animal sounds thrown in for fun!
What kind of incentives do you use to make learning more fun?
Excellent idea! I think sometimes I get so hung up with making them do things without needing a reward that I forget it's good to give them incentive once in a while :) We use incentives for chores--like, if we get the laundry folded, we can have a sock throwing fight or if we finish our chores quickly, we can have a lunch picnic.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Jenn! I love the idea of a picnic lunch - been so long since we've done one. It's cold and snowy here, but we could have our picnic on the living room floor! And how much fun a sock throwing fight would be! Thanks for the ideas!
DeleteI LOVE using mini M&Ms. I use them in my speech therapy sessions ALL THE TIME, and I have also used them with my daughter for various things. We used them when we first started having to give her daily medications and she didn't want to take it...worked like a charm. It's positive reinforcement! Thanks for sharing your inspiring ideas with us all at Thrifty Thursday, have a fantastic weekend!
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