Ones & Tens Chart: Earned Reward

This is more my kind of marble jar.

I'm sure a lot of teachers use or have heard of the marble jar. Personally, I never cared for the marble jar probably because I'm very qualitative and a stickler for guidelines and rules in a lot of ways. I never knew what warranted how many marbles. Johnny helped Joey clean up. Is that a two-marble job? Does every kid get to put in one marble? Should I just throw in an arbitrary handful? Really I needed a marble jar with individual spaces for each and eveg paint dry to fill up the marble jar and you know that if I felt that way, the kids probably felt like it was eternal torture. Thus, the marble jar is not for me. Maybe it'll suit you better, feel free to google it.

Really I needed a marble jar with individual spaces for each and every marble so we knew exactly what kind of progress we were making. Then, one day, I came across the ones and tens chart. It was something I read on a website and I thought I'd give it a try. I decided that numbers could never be taken away. It was just an exciting ritual that began each math session.

Here's how it went. The ones and tens chart was simply a piece of laminated posterboard that was divided into 100 squares from 00 to 99. I had a jar with scraps of paper in it from 0-9 and a jar with all the kid's numbers (every kid in your class should have a number, it makes your life SO much easier). I would draw three numbers from the jar with all the students' numbers in it and those kids would get to pick a number for the ones place and a number for the tens place out of the jar with numbers 0-9.

Mine was like this but with 00 before 1
and it stopped at 99

The kid would then have to figure out what number he/she drew and we would cross it out using a Vis-a-vis marker. We would do this everyday until the whole chart was crossed out at which point the kids earned something. It might be cookies or pizza. Sometimes, if a kid was doing something really nice or helpful, I would say he/she could pull an extra turn from the ones and tens jar.

A couple of things, if they drew the same number, it counts and they just would cross anything out for that turn. For example, if 67 is already crossed out and a kid pulls a 6 for the tens place and a 7 for the ones place, it's just too bad; they don't get to redraw. This might seem kind of rough, but let me tell you, the explosion that happens when that last kid gets that last number is like Vesuvius.

The benefits are numerous. The kids practice place value everyday which, from my experience, is a constant struggle. They learn delayed gratification. It's practically free depending on what reward for which they're working and it sets a wonderful tone for your math lesson each day. For me, I enjoyed that we could see the progress as the squares were crossed out. It far exceeds the marble jar, but that is just my opinion. You have to figure out what works for you.