by Marianna Monheim – updated December 16th, 2024
Motivate Students Without Spending a Penny
There’s no need for treasure boxes or endless trips to Target to find trinkets to motivate your upper elementary students. Instead, classroom reward coupons offer a unique, highly effective way to show your class you appreciate when they go above and beyond. The best part? It couldn’t be easier to set up a reward system with these coupons.
Want to learn more? Read below to find out why teachers are switching to this type of incentive.
Table of Contents
What Are Classroom Reward Coupons?
Classroom reward coupons are small, printable incentives that students can earn and redeem for privileges, activities, or other non-monetary rewards. Students love earning coupons for rewards like:
- Extra recess time
- A “no homework” pass
- Choosing the next classroom activity
- Sitting in a special chair
You’ll notice none of these rewards are tangible…because they don’t have to be! Most students just want the chance to feel a little bit special, and these coupons do just that.
Why Choose Reward Coupons Over Traditional Rewards?
When it comes to rewarding students, coupons offer numerous advantages over traditional methods:
- Cost-Effective: Reward coupons don’t require ongoing purchases, perfect for teachers on a budget
- Creative and Engaging: Ever bought 1000 stickers to find out your students don’t really like stickers this year? With coupons, you can customize rewards to match your students’ interests. You can even use your interest inventories from the beginning of the year to search for ideas.
- Encourage Intrinsic Motivation: Sure, it’s fun to be rewarded with a prize here or there, but students will benefit from the focus on experience-based rewards.
Not to mention, there are endless ways to customize coupons to make them work for your classroom!
When Should I Hand Out Reward Coupons?
That’s totally up to you…and your students! Focus on positive behaviors you are trying to reinforce, for example:
- Students truly collaborating on a group project
- Punctuality or participation
- Positive conflict resolution
- Keeping the room neat
- Great behavior for a substitute
- Compliments from other staff members
There’s no end to what you can hand out a reward coupon for. It’s a great way to build a positive classroom community, where student effort is noticed and appreciated!
What Kind of Rewards Should I Start With?
Having trouble thinking of ideas for rewards? Here’s a few classics that won’t cost you a dime:
- Extra computer time
- Bring a stuffie to school
- First person to the playground
- Line leader
- Teacher assistant for the day
- Lunch with a teacher
- Sit next to a friend for the day
- Read to a younger class
- Help a previous teacher
You can even tie your coupons into school-specific activities, such as ice cream day in the cafeteria, or being a special guest on the morning announcements.
Using Reward Coupons Effectively
Like all classroom systems, you need to develop a plan that’s easy to implement so that you’ll stick with it. Here are a few things to think about:
Establish a routine: Decide when, where, and how you’ll hand out coupons, as well as how students will redeem them.
Set boundaries: You want to avoid overuse and abuse of privileges, so you may want to consider capping the amount of coupons that can be redeemed at a time, or agreeing on a set of behavior expectations necessary to redeem a reward (for example, a student trying to avoid a consequence in the cafeteria should not be able to redeem a “lunch with the teacher” coupon.
Be Consistent: It might help to create a quick checklist to make sure everyone’s had an opportunity to earn and redeem coupons.
Do You Have Time to Create Your Own Classroom Reward Coupons?
Like many teachers, you may be trying your best to keep your head above water. If you’d like to try out a reward coupon system but don’t have time to think up and create your own, I’m here to help! You can find two sets of reward coupons in my TPT store:
Each set includes 43 no-cost rewards in color and black-and-white, as well as editable templates for you to add your own class-specific awards. Both sets are filled with rewards that upper elementary students will love! Click the buttons above to snag the set that works best for you.