Passport

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Home : 2008 : February : 17

Passport
By vespergirl

I teach fifth grade, and I used something I call a "passport." It is about the size of a 4x6 card. On it, it has five empty blocks plus an area for the child's name. They get one of these a quarter. Every time a child
asks me to go to the restroom or locker during class, I "stamp" their passport with a stamp that has my name on it.

My homeroom is actually only with me two class periods of the day, and we schedule five-minute breaks inbetween classes when kids are free to use the restroom and go to their lockers, so five "stamps" are more than enough. I also include a "one day late" block on

the passport, which allows a kid to turn in one homework assignment one day late without penalty.

If kids lose the passport, they are out of luck for the quarter. At the end of the quarter, any kid who hasn't used all of the stamps on his passport is eligible for a special drawing. A five-dollar Jamba Juice card is incredibly motivating.

I found a graphic of an actual passport somewhere on the Internet and just customized it for my class. It's a system that works beautifully for me so far.