From Candy Treats to GoNoodle Beats: How to Enhance Your Reward System!

If you’re like me, you’ve been a loyal GoNoodle user for a while now. You love it. Your kids love it. You’re even singing “Run Like a Kitty Kitty” while you fold the laundry.

But what if I told you you could take it a step further and even use it to enhance your classroom behavior system?!

In my classroom it looks like this: we usually take at least two brain breaks per day REGARDLESS OF BEHAVIOR – one in the morning and one in the afternoon because, as we all know, KIDS NEED TO MOVE! 

But recently I started letting a student who has been demonstrating my classroom expectations CHOOSE the brain break. People, you’d think I gave them $100.

I use ClassDojo to award my students points when they demonstrate positive behavior. These behaviors include working quietly, staying on task, helping others, participating, etc. When they earn a certain number of points, they get to choose a reward in class. The most popular reward is “Choose a Brain Break!” They live for that reward, and it costs me NOTHING.

I use the cards that I found on this post on the GoNoodle Blog: Brain Break Tickets.

My “Show & Tell” cards are wrinkled. The “Choose Your Seat for the Day” cards have kids names written all over them.

But my “Choose a Brain Break” cards are so popular they are disappearing. I’ve had to print more at least three times, and we’ve only been in school for seven weeks!! They LOVE them!

And the best part: no more running to the store at lunch because I forgot to pick up a bag of candy the night before. No more worrying about having a behavior reward everyone likes, won’t affect their allergies, or that fits in with my corporation’s health initiative.

The same applies for those of you who have a treasure box in your classroom. Save your time, money, and space, and try letting them choose a brain break instead.

Give your kids the gift of GoNoodle. And then let them CHOOSE. You’ll be glad you did.