Using Class Dojo in Music

I love Class Dojo. I love Class Dojo. Have I mentioned that I love Class Dojo? …’Cause I do.

When I saw gen. ed. classroom teachers use the program, I thought it was so brilliant. Instant point system that is easy to correlate to classroom money? An instant record of behavior to show a parent at conferences? Completely free? Rock on!

I love you, little green dude who does flips when the page is loading.

As useful as I could already see that it was, I almost immediately decided that I could never use it. I have over 400 students; keeping track of them all would be a NIGHTMARE. I already used a whole-class incentive system and a compliment system with behavioral differentiation when necessary, how would all that fit in? Nah, cool but not for me.

Over the summer I began to reconsider, and boy am I glad that I did!

It was easy once I realized I could use Dojo as a tracking tool for the class-wide system I already had. I have a “BRAVO” system. When every single student in a class is following my two rules (Respect and participate) they earn a letter. The goal is to earn five letters to spell the word BRAVO in one class. When they do, they earn a certificate and stickers for the school-wide PBS reward system.

This is what it looks like when students earn all 5 letters.

In Dojo, I have each class as their own monster, instead of each student. It is easier to keep track of, and the individual reward systems I already had in place weren’t changed. I post the updated points every Friday afternoon outside my door, so teachers can see how far along their class is. I track the points for a quarter, and reset the points for the new quarter.

Teachers like being able to see how many points students earn, too.

One of the best things about this website is that now I have a way to reward classes for behavior on the long term. The main downfall of my system before was if a class never earned a BRAVO, they never realized how cool it was and didn’t feel motivated by it. But with Dojo, they can earn stickers for every 25 points they earn in total, even if they never get a BRAVO. It allows classes with more behavioral issues to still be motivated by a positive behavioral system. I also allow them, with 50 points, to earn a mini-bravo party and with 100 points, to earn a full bravo party.

A bravo party is when I allow students to choose their own instruments for a full class. (A mini-bravo party is 10 minutes on instruments of their own choice.) Students also get a small treat, like a baggie of fruit snacks, when they leave. I still have objectives and focused teaching, but students get choice and find it to be motivating. I chose this reward because I figured with so little time to teach kids so much music theory, I didn’t have any extra to spare on a free choice day or a pizza party.

Students really seem to like knowing how many points they have, and students K-5 work hard so they can earn another letter/point. It also helps that the art teacher in my building found and loves Dojo too, so they see similar systems in more than one class.

Class Dojo has been a very useful took for me so far. I plan on giving out this certificate each quarter to the class in each grade with the most BRAVO points. I found it here. What a fantastic idea!

This Teacher had such a great idea!

The Summer Of Books

My goal this summer was simple: find as many books for my classroom as possible, for as cheap as possible. Then, find the best way to use those books in class… Preferably BEFORE there are 25 kindergarteners in my room, staring at me their with adorable kindie-kid eyes. (Those eyes are located right above the kindie-honest mouths, AKA motivation to be over-prepared.)

Why not libraries, you ask? I’ve tried them, I really have. I promise. But I’m terrible about re-using books. I will use one book several times a year. When teaching music to K-5, it’s a surprisingly easy thing to do. I will also shamefully admit I’m terrible about returning them in two weeks. I see my classes once a week, and two class periods just isn’t going to be enough if I decide to base a grade’s program on a book. I also happen to really like my school’s librarian, and would prefer not to make her angry with my bad library habits. Plus, buying them now means I can avoid borrowing in the future, so buying books seemed like the best option for me.

Amazon is an amazing place, don’t get me wrong. But I have found that even with no shipping thanks to Prime, the cost of new books adds up quick. So, my first stop was the thrift stores. ALL OF THEM. I went to every thrift store in my city and positively plundered the children’s book sections. I got a lot of dirty looks from moms, and I’m certain a few people thought I was crazy, but a .99 cent book is a powerful incentive. I found books of every kind, and quite a few of them were ones I had never heard of before.

I spent some of my summer mentoring new music teachers in my district, and here is one question I got a lot: What do you look for in a book, and how do you know it will work in your classroom? While digging through piles and piles of categorized books that seemed to be a mix of out-dated Disney characters, books teaching toddlers to say “please” or use the bathroom, and absolutely perfect books for my music classroom, I looked for three main things:

1. Reading Level. Even when using a book with an intermediate grade, I keep to a K-2 reading level. Narration in higher-leveled books can get LONG. I like to have the kids making as much music as possible, and primary books deliver.
2. Repeated structures and refrains. Another great thing about primary level books is they tend to have a lot of repetition. A repeated phrase in the book is an easy opportunity to add a sung refrain, or a chant.
3. Onomatopoeia. Sound effects are huge in my state’s curriculum for K-1, and even for older kids they are very easy to transfer to instruments.

Did I find anything? HECK YES I DID. Eric Carle books, folk tales, short poetry books, you name it. Some of the very specific books I wanted (thanks to Pinterest) weren’t to be found, so I did make a pretty gigantic order to Amazon. But it wasn’t nearly as big as it could have been!

I will be going into more detail about what I do with each book soon. I hope you find a book that makes you do the happy dance!

Here are just a few books recently added to my classroom library!