The Easiest Way to Implement a Classroom Economy

As my life continues to get crazier, I am constantly looking for ways to simplify and improve the things that I do. This year, for example, I decided to merge Class Dojo with my classroom economy, and so far, it's going very well! Here are some of the tweaks I made to make this merger work.

My Classroom Economy

I've been using a classroom economy since I started teaching, and every year, I make a few tweaks. The basic idea is that every student applies for a class job at the beginning of each term (our terms are 6 weeks long). I've previously posted about my classroom jobs here. I display the jobs in my classroom so that we're constantly reminded who is responsible for what. This year, I've used a pocket chart for my classroom jobs (sorry for the blurry photo).

I used to give students $100/week as their salary, or about $20 per day. They'd have weekly and monthly expenses, and then they could use any remaining money to purchase items in our class store. The complete program is detailed in my Classroom Economy Megapack on TpT.

I love the system, but I felt like I wasn't as consistent as I wanted to be in tracking student behaviors to give fines or bonuses, and there were many Friday afternoons when I was so involved in whatever we were working on that day, that I just didn't leave enough time for them to shop. 

Meanwhile, I was dabbling with Class Dojo, and I wanted to figure out a way to tie that in as well. If you're not already familiar, Class Dojo is an online behavior management system that allows you to give and take away points from students. You can create your own categories for points, and you can access the class info from any device -- laptop, computer, iPad, iPhone, etc. I liked that portability because I always have one of those devices in my hands, and I could give or take away points without really interrupting what I was doing. 

The solution came for me this year when Class Dojo allowed for the creation of weighted point values! Before, you could only give or take away a single point at a time. Now you can create points on a scale of 1-5 and weight particular behaviors accordingly. This is done in the set-up for behaviors. 

1. Go to Edit Class on your class screen and select "Edit students and behaviors."

2. Select "Behaviors" and either click on one of the exiting behaviors, or the plus symbol to customize the behaviors.

3. Change the icon (optional), name or rename the behavior, and then click the box to access a pull down menu of point values to weight that item.

And that's it! You can weight both the positive and negative behaviors according to your needs. Here are the settings I have now for my classroom economy.

I basically divided the $100 weekly salary by 10, and scaled everything else back the same way. Students now get 2 points daily for their salary (10 points per week) and bonuses for different behaviors. The only other positive behavior that I've weighted more currently is helping others because I'm really trying to encourage that in my classroom. I'm also going to add a +4 for a class compliment because I like when they do a good job with other adults in the building.

For negative behaviors, I deduct more points for breaking rules outside of my classroom and for disrespecting people or materials. I also now deduct their taxes and rent through Class Dojo, and when they shop, I deduct their points in here. I price everything in multiples of 2, but then I found that I wanted a -5 shopping once they had enough points for some of the larger ticket items in our class store. I dislike that it shows up in the "Needs Work" tab, but I don't think it's a problem overall. The parents know what is happening from the descriptors, and we just talk about it in class from the stance of making or spending money. It's the easiest way to deduct some points without resetting the points entirely.

Since transitioning to this modified system 7 weeks ago, my classroom economy has become more accurate and effective in a fraction of the instructional time. Class Dojo has replaced the clip chart that I used to use, and it helps with some of the accounting. I'm still using the bulk of the resources from my Classroom Economy Megapack, however.

If you're interested in trying out Class Dojo with the rest of my Classroom Economy Megapack, I'll be offering the product on sale at half price through Tuesday. It is one of my best sellers, and if you're looking to change up your classroom management routines or enhance your existing classroom economy, I don't think you'll be disappointed. I've also discounted the rest of my TpT store 20% to celebrate my return to blogging after a busy start to the school year. Those sale prices will go now through Tuesday, so check them out!

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Have a great week!