What's Workin Wednesday: Motivational Bulletin Boards

Hey everyone! I hope you were able to pick up a bunch of great items at TpT's huge sale the last 2 days! I know I did!

Well, it's Wednesday so it's time to talk about what's working in my room. Now, this is the first one that Gina (Third Grade Tidbits) and I are hosting as a linky party so please link up and share what's working in your room!

This week I wanted to share a motivational bulletin board that I have in my room. I'm blessed at my school that my students use ST Math....affectionately referred to as Jiji in my room.

My students are able to play Jiji at home and they go to the computer lab once a week and spend a little bit of time working on it there.  If you've never seen it, it's amazing!  It's a visual way for kids to practice math.  At my school grades 2-5 do Jiji.  They solve "puzzles" and progress through the various levels.  I've set up the content to align with what they've learned or are about to learn in class.

As they progress, I use this bulletin board to document their growth.

As Jiji (the cute little penguin) completes 10% intervals, I get an email postcard saying where she has travelled to.

Last year I would just show the kids the postcards as I got them, but this year I wanted to highlight individual students as they work hard to complete the program.  So the bulletin board was created.

After a little bit of searching I was able to download the postcards.  If you use ST Math, you can find them by clicking here.

Then I created a little "personal Jiji" for each of my students.

click here to download this template. 
when it shows up in google drive the background is white, but when you download it you can see the background

As they move through the program, I'll move their Jiji to the different postcards.  That way if the class is only at 10% completion, but they're at 30%, they can say their Jiji is in Paris.

I also made a "class Jiji" to show where we are as a class.

So far the kids love seeing their progress.  They come in and let me know they did Jiji the night before and I try to check progress multiple times a week and move the Jiji's so that the reinforcement is relatively immediate.  It's also helped get the kids motivated and excited to complete the program.  I don't have to assign it as homework because most of them want to do it so they can see their progress......a definite win for a teacher!

So now it's time to link up!  The link will be open each week from Wednesday to Tuesday.  Gina and I love Farley's rule of 3 so we're adopting that.  Please remember to comment on the one (or more!) before your link and the two (or more!) after your link!  We all love the feedback!