Teaching Responsibility

At our school we keep track of how responsible each student is. It might sound time consuming, but it doesn't take that much time. 

I have a spread sheet with each child's name on it. Every morning I check to see if they have their homework turned in. (They have a place on the board to put their magnet up. Those who haven't moved theirs are the ones who didn't bring it.) I check to see if they are wearing their glasses. They will get a responsibility mark if they don't have these things with them. If they don't put their name on their papers or if they don't bring their gym shoes they also get a mark. 

After 6 marks, I send their parents a note telling them that we are trying to build responsible young people and that their child needs to make some improvements in this area. Then I list what the specific problems are for that child. If they continue and get 12 marks in the month, they will miss a fun event near the end of the month. Then we start with a clean slate at the beginning of each month. Meanwhile I have a check sheet to show a parent if their child has a pattern of not returning things or being responsible.

But the BIG deal is that I do reward them for being responsible. Anyone who has zero or one responsibility mark, gets to eat in the classroom with me on the last day of the month. This may not sound like a big deal to you, but my kids love it!

You can see that these girls are having fun. But even more so, these boys below are loving it!

In case you're wondering, they get their outdoor clothes on first, eat, then go outside. As usual the boys finished first because they love to rush outside. The girls stayed around to chat with me a bit.

What do you do to help your kids become more responsible?

Patty