Making Time for Stations and Rewards
In an earlier blog post I wrote about incentives in my classroom that I call “Mona Lisa Points.” I don’t want the process of looking up points and giving out rewards to take away from the pacing of a carefully planned, project-based unit. So, I allot space in my curriculum for “Mona Lisa Fridays.” I see students on a rotating ABC schedule, so a class will get a Mona Lisa Friday about every third week. On Fridays, instead of using the last ten minutes of class to clean up, we look at all our points on Class Dojo and winning teams collect rewards.
I have stations set up so that it all requires minimal clean up time, and that makes it a perfect activity for when I need spend time on the rewards system. This kind of set up is also fantastic for a Sub Plan (here’s an emergency sub plan as an example). I have at least six stations that are all ready to go, some with laminated prompts, and that all grade levels have practiced. The students know what to do; they love it, and so do the subs!
Mona Lisa Fridays give the perfect time and space for stations with choice-based, materials-focused art activities. At stations, students make art in an exploratory, fully self-driven manner. It’s an important and unique way for children to learn how to solve problems creatively and independently.
I set out stations based on different materials or sometimes based on big ideas or themes. I usually set stations to a timer so that all students rotate every 8-10 minutes. Other times students may choose and switch stations on their own terms and may spend the entire class at one station if they choose. No matter what format, my students understand that stations are about making special one-day art. They are usually prompted to make ephemeral art (i.e. modeling clay, dry erase boards, building blocks that get put away). Students feel like they are not supposed to produce a “real” product, and so they open up to taking risks and solving problems on their own.
My role is mainly to provide a prompt and praise their unique choices, which I find helps my students build confidence. Later, when they feel stuck in a project they find “real” or “too hard,” I prompt them to remember a great way they once made art or a solved a problem at a station.
There are a lot of great “I can” statements that you can align with stations, and I put this poster up as an anchor. Sometimes I use a PPT to display a unique “I Can” statement depending on the format, prompts, or unit I have going on (i.e. using stations as a mini-lesson to reinforce "geometric and organic shapes" to help my first graders learn the concept). Often times I think of a statement that will be uniquely helpful for a class that I’ve noticed could improve on certain studio habits of mind. For example, to help students feel more responsible and proud of their individual effort, I once displayed: “I can experiment, take risks, and figure out how to make something that only I can make.” My students will say “I can” statements like these aloud at the beginning and end of the class session.