Sparking Student Motivation

It's Saturday (for a few more minutes), and I was reading all the ideas at Joanne's Head Over Heels for Teaching Spark Student Motivation linky, so I decided to join in.

I know I've talked about A/R before, and how motivated it has my babies to read, but you know what gets them to finish ALL of their work? Friday Fun...it doesn't matter what it really consists of, Friday Fun is just a winner. I've never had even one child ever miss it for not having work completed, and in 14 years, that's a lot of Fridays and a lot of kiddos!

For the last 20 minutes of the week, I plan (or not) something educational and fun. I write FUN on the board each Monday, just to keep behavior motivated, too, because we can lose letters in fun, and if the FUN is gone, the Friday Fun is, too! This week, it was just the bubble gum lesson I posted about last night. Sometimes it's a Magic School Bus video. Last week, we sang the Noun Song and the Verb Rap from www.havefunteaching.com. I even have special requests for the
Sid Shuffle/Continental Drift from Ice Age! That only lasts about 4 minutes, but my kids are satisfied, have fun, and then are DYING for me to read to them!

Give Fun Friday a try!
Hugs,