BTS in a Flash! Student Engagement

Hello everyone! It's the final week of BTS in a Flash! This linky has been so much fun & I've found so many great ideas! Thanks to our hosts for setting all of this up! :)
This week's topic is student engagement...

These little traffic cones with positive sayings on them make my kids work SO hard. As soon as I start giving them out the participation in class shoots way up! I found them at the Dollar Tree. I've seen them each year around back to school time for about the past four years, but if you see them buy them! They go quickly! 

I give these out for exceptional answers, hard work, kind acts, and great effort! When the kids earn a cone they also write a note home to their parent to let them know they earned it and how they earned it. It sits on the corner of their desk for the day & then they're returned to be used again the next day. 

I didn't have a picture of the cones so I used this photo of the cones from Crockett's Classroom. She has a post about these where she adds a little something to spice them up. Check it out!

Behavior bucks were a huge hit this past year. The kids could earn $5.00 each day if they followed classroom rules, completed their work, got along with others etc. They would save the money and then they could spend it on reward coupons (see below). Also, once a quarter I would have a special event such as donut morning where they could spend the earned paper money to buy a donut. The kids were really motivated to stick to our rules so they could keep their money. They also got a lot of practice in trading money because they always wanted the higher bills. So it was helpful in two ways! I love it when that happens!

These are the coupons that I mentioned earlier. These were great because the rewards on the coupons cost me little to no money and the kids loved them! I'd say the favorites were, "Sit in the Teacher's Chair" and "Homework Pass". The kids really wanted to save their Behavior Bucks so they could purchase the coupons.

What are your tips for keeping students engaged?

An InLinkz Link-up