Hallway Behavior Incentive: Secret Star
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Have you heard of Secret Star? You’ve probably seen me talk about it before… and that’s because I *love* this trick! Secret Star is a classroom management tool that works WONDERS on hallway behavior, assembly behavior, teacher talking to the Principal by the door behavior… you get the idea!
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Here’s how it works: By the door, I keep the above display, which includes a framed “Are you the Secret Star?” sign, a Secret Star Students jar, and a Secret Starbursts jar. Whenever I need a quiet and well-behaved class, I tell my kiddos I’m looking for the Secret Star and I’ll take a token from the Secret Star Students jar. My tokens have student numbers on them, but you could use names, too.
Once I have a student picked, I will nonchalantly observe him or her as we walk through the hall {or sit in an assembly, or…} But SHHH! It’s a secret! No one knows who I’m looking at… and so they ALL behave! Why? Because they want a Secret Starburst, of course!
I’m telling you, this trick really works! My firsties never let me forget to choose a Secret Star. Ever. They even ask if I’ll pick one for nontypical Secret Star events… and sometimes I will, because I’m cool like that 😉
If you want to make your own Secret Star display, you’ll need:
*a decorative 5×7″ picture frame
*two plastic paint cans {or any type of jars/containers}
*enough 1.5″ round wooden tokens for your class list
*a big bag of Starbursts
*and THIS FREEBIE, which includes the sign, labels, and tiny numbers
Putting it all together is simple! I used a 1″ circle punch to cut the little numbers, then Mod Podged them onto the tokens {or rather, I am going to because I can’t find my Mod Podge anywhere!}. You could also just use paint markers or Sharpies to writes names/numbers. Or, here is an alternative to the tokens:
