Classroom Economy: Day One

One of my most favorite things I do to manage my class is my classroom economy.  It is something that gets instant buy in from my students and allows me a chance to teach many different standards, all while keeping the students focused on their learning tasks at hand.  I have written about it several times here on the blog, but I wanted to share with you how I set it up the first few days of school.

Day One:

On the first day of school, I start my math block by explaining that in this class, things will run sort of like how they do in the real world.  We will be conducting a classroom economy.  What that means is that everything you do in class will either earn you classroom money or cost you classroom money.

This is where the kids usually start to look at each other and squirm around in excitement.

I then hand out the check register to the students, which is attached to a postcard with all of the classroom fines, expenses, and earnings.

If you are interested in these posters, you can get them by clicking here.

We look at the back together, focusing at first on the earnings.  I let them know that they have already earned their first dollar in class.  Since they came to school on time (everyone comes to school on time the first day ;)), they will get $1.00.

Again, kids look at each other...but usually there is cheering at this point.

I then show them how to enter this into the register.  Since this is a credit into their "bank", they add it to their total.  They now have $1.  Click here to grab the check register page.  

It is here where I pull out the wallets.  I tell them that they MUST have a wallet in class.  We can't have money just hanging around willy-nilly in their pencil boxes.  But wallets don't come for free.  They happen to cost $1.  So I hand the kids the wallets while they hand me $1.  We then record the debit into the register.  Their balance is now $0.

I like to use the Lakeshore pencil cases as wallets because the kids can then decorate them.  If you want, a plain old white envelope will do.  I also like the recipe holders from the Target Dollar Spot. 

That just about does it for the first day.  The kids get pumped about it and learn a bit of the vocabulary they will be using as the year goes on.  They also have learned how to balance and keep up with their check register.

OK...that is enough for now.  DAY TWO focuses on how the students EARN money in my room. Click on the pink link and it will take you right there.  What questions do you have for me now that I can try and answer in my next post?

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