Rev Your Engines: Instant Movtivation Post Spring Break BIiss

Our vacation is almost over. (Pause a minute for a long, big, dramatic sigh) Days of sleeping in, staying up late, and being lazy are OVER. Monday will bring kids walking in like they were just woken up 10 minutes ago, wishing that they were still at home in bed...or will it????


I think NOT!


We had a reader email us and ask if we had any ideas about how to motivate students after Spring Break..and that was all the inspiration we needed get our motors running.


I made a quick stop into school over the break and transformed our classroom floor into THIS:

Just 30 minutes later and our classroom floor was transformed into a make-shift racing track!

On Monday, students will walk into the classroom and find themselves among traffic cones, traffic signs and lights all over! 

To make the road, all you need is a LONG piece of black butcher paper to get started! I used white Duck tape for the street line markers. I found the orange cones at Meijer (a grocery/department store) super cheap! Only $3.50 for 4! I then cut red, yellow, and green circles for the traffic lights! Get creative!!

With the racing theme in mind, students will make one goal that they would like to accomplish before the end of the school year. What is one realistic, specific, measurable goal that each one of your students can set for themselves?

Examples:

Maybe they need to SPEEEEEED up with their math facts or reading fluency. So-

My goal is to pass all my math facts to x12 by the end of the year.

My goal is to read over 100 words per minute by the last day of the school year.

Or, completely unrelated to academics:

My goal is to stop drinking soda and only drink water or 100% orange juice.

After giving thought and consideration for a goal (and also having a very short conference with me so that I can make sure it is appropriate for them) the fun begins!

Here are some of the ideas that we came up with for our students to reach their goals with a fun racing theme!

First up!

Do your students bring water bottles and snacks to school? Make a refuel station and have them keep all their munchies there! :)

Do you have any of the red, yellow, and green garage sale stickers??? Use them to give feedback to your students when you see they are working towards (or AWAY!) from their goals! For example, if their goal is to read more words per minute and they are doing a great job with practicing this skill during reading, place a green sticker on their hand. If their goal is to eat less sugar and they bring an apple for their snack, you can place a green sticker on their hand as a way to reinforce their good choices. Did they just pass another math fact? Great news! Place a green sticker on their math facts paper.

This is the "secret code" of colors, so the students will automatically know the meaning of the stickers you give them:

Next idea:

Give your students race car drivers a license to make their goal official!

And, are you really brave???? After studying the anatomy of a race car, students will bring in materials and supplies to make their desk into a RACE CAR!!! :)

Paper plates? Now the are headlights!

Aluminium foil? Not it is an exhaust pipe!

Our other ideas that we included in this unit are as follows:

- A Pit Crew! The students will create their pit crew, you know, the people that who will be there to support them with reaching their goal?

- Roadblocks: What roadblocks might the students encounter when trying to reach their goal? How can they drive around that roadblock to be successful?

- Daily goal monitoring

- Winners circle award

- Racer application

- Race acrostic poem

- Posters

Here is a sneak peek of the unit!

We saved the best for last:

Oh YES!!!

Music=Instant motivation!

Have the instrumental version (if you want to play it safe with the lyrics) or this version as your students are walking into the classroom. This will be definitely wake up your kiddos and get 'em smiling!!

If you are interested in purchasing the entire unit and completing motivating your students for an awesome rest of the year, click below:

Rev Your Engines:


Have a great weekend! :)