Token Economy

Method

This year we have started using a token economy in our classroom to encourage positive work and classroom behavior from our students.  Each student has a wallet that is kept on his/her desk at school.  Throughout the day the students have a chance to earn "quarters" for good behavior.  Some of the things that students receive quarters for are: doing a classroom job, completing a school wide job, appropriate behavior on CBI, and quarters are also handed out at teacher discretion randomly throughout the school day.

Purpose

There are many reasons that this program has been created for our classroom. Some of the purposes are:

• To encourage students to always be aware of their behavior and to be responsible for their own behavior. 

• It creates a positive behavior management system for our classroom.  Student are rewarded for positive behavior instead of being corrected for negative behavior (unless absolutely necessary).

• Students really enjoy the program and have bought into it...so it has worked for us so far. 

• It allows constant student interaction with money, both coins and dollar bills.  Student earn quarters...when they have earned four quarters they come to the teacher to exchange those quarters for a One Dollar Bill. When five One Dollar Bills are collected, students exchange for a Five Dollar Bill...etc. 

• Students are able to choose to spend the money weekly or to save it for a larger prize.  We have prize boxes in the classroom that range from 25¢ to $5.00. On Friday afternoon they can choose to purchase something from those boxes or save their money for bigger prizes like: pop, snacks from school snack cart, trip to the dollar store, or lunch from a fast food restaurant.  We work on functional math money skills when students are counting, purchasing, figuring out change, etc.

Prize List

The Following is a list of prizes that the students can purchase from the classroom store on Fridays.  If a student earns enough money for fast food arrangements will be made with home so that parents will know what day their student does not need a lunch.

• Classroom Prize Box Prizes- 25¢ to $5.00

• Snack from the School Snack Cart- $5.00

• Pop from School Pop Machine- $6.00

• Trip to Dollar Store (1 Item)- $7.00

• Fast Food Lunch- $15.00

We talk about classroom prices versus true "real world" prices.  I had to make some items more expensive since I am paying for the prizes...but the students understand that it doesn't cost $7.00 to buy one item at the dollar store!

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