End-of-the-Day MADNESS!

Some days, by the end of the day, my kids are going C R A Z Y or my lesson ran too long and there is just no time to settle down and then everyone is just out the door!

I was getting sooo frustrated because I was finding myself spending a good chunk of time after school every day cleaning, straightening up, and just fixing the chaos that had rained down in my room. I had read a great post somewhere in the blogosphere about having a "secret helper": Choosing the helper for the next day based on the best cleaner-upper. Well, I already have a system in place for my Morning Meeting Leader/Helper of the Day, so that didn't work for me- BUT, it did give me this great idea: TEAMS!

Each table was already named after a kind of dinosaur (of course), so I made mini-versions of their table signs, laminated them, fixed magnets onto the back and voila! A corner of my whiteboard became a scoreboard for the Great Weekly Table Challenge. Points can be earned by being the table to be the cleanest, fastest, at the end of the day- all chairs stacked, nothing on or underneath desks, and every student standing in front of their desk and ready to go! The team with the most points at the end of the week got a piece of candy (I have been very into bribery with candy this year, which I tend to try to stay away from....whoops. Whatever works, right?!). 

I've also started adding points for various behaviors throughout the school day- all chairs pushed in and desks cleaned off when we transition to the carpet; being the first table with all their supplies out and ready to go for the next lesson; even correct answers for the BrainQuest trivia I try to fit in at the end of the day. These kids go CRAZY for points, and it has done wonders for my sanity at the end of the day!