Pumpkin "Punkin" Praise!

Woo Hoo! This is my 400th Blog Article! Wow; that sure happened fast. I hope you've found them helpful.

Are your little “punkins” in need of a little calming?

I’ve found that as the year progresses and students get to know their classmates and become friends, they begin to get more comfortable and very social.

On one hand this is terrific, on the other, little ones can become so excited that they forget to stop talking, raise their hand, and use inside voices.

There’s nothing like a little incentive to make rules and reminders fun. Since October is just around the corner, I thought a Pumpkin Praise Puzzle would be appropriate.

Students earn a pumpkin puzzle piece with a letter on it, for whatever behavior you decide upon.  When completely assembled, the pumpkin spells “Pumpkin Praise”.

For those schools celebrating Halloween, I have a Jack-O-lantern.  For those who celebrate a harvest theme, I have a plain pumpkin puzzle.

Decide ahead of time, what behavior will earn a pumpkin letter i.e., everyone lining up before the timer rings, everyone completing a task, etc.

For preschoolers you can have instant gratification at the end of the day; they earn a letter for a list of behaviors they have accomplished throughout the day.  Remind them that a letter can be taken away for inappropriate behavior as well.

Older students can have delayed gratification, and earn 1 or 2 letters per day, with their reward coming at the end of the week.

Decide with your class what the reward should be, perhaps an extra recess, a nature walk, everyone gets a special treat that they help make for snack time, etc.

Do this for only a day or week or continue through out the month or until interest wanes.

Simply run off the template on orange construction paper.  I ran off another copy on green so that I could have a green stem.  I also colored in the pumpkin’s facial features with a black marker.

Laminate the pieces and cut them out.  Attach a magnet or piece of Velcro so you can attach your pumpkin puzzle to a white or flannel board.

As students earn a puzzle piece, assemble the pumpkin on the board.

I designed this so you could do this as a whole-group activity, but you could easily have your students work on the other pumpkin as a personal achievement puzzle pumpkin.

As children earn puzzle pieces, they could glue them to a sheet of black construction paper and collect their reward once they have completed their pumpkin!

You could make these individual pumpkins smaller by shrinking my template on the copier.

Click on the link to view/download Pumpkin Praise Behavior Modification Puzzle

I hope Pumpkin Praise works for you and that you find yourself praising your little “punkins” through out October!

Do you have a behavior modification technique you could share with us? I’d enjoy hearing from you. diane@teachwithme.com or feel free to leave a comment here.

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“The rain falls on all of the fields, but crops grow only in those that have been tilled and sown.” –Chinese Proverb