When my friend Jill (@hellofifth on Instagram) first shared about using water bottle stickers as student rewards in the classroom, I was hooked! I bought a fews sets of them for my students and it was clear that they loved sticker rewards as well! They are cheap, easy-to-implement, and upper grade approved! Fast forward to this year, and I’ve made a few upgrades to how I use sticker rewards as part of my classroom management!

How my Students Earn Stickers

The most commonly asked question I get about stickers is what I give them to my students for! Here are some ideas:
– Reaching a goal
– Great listening/eye contact
– Prepared + ready to learn
– Acts of kindness
– Terrific teamwork
– Great participation in class
– Amazing leadership
– Great role model behavior
– Lining up quietly

You can really use them for anything! If your class is struggling with something, this is a great way to reinforce the positive behaviors you want to see! And these cards make it easy to hand out during class so students can pick their sticker at a more convenient time!

My students can also buy stickers as part of our classroom economy! More info about our classroom economy coming in another blog post!

How I Manage Sticker Reward Distribution

I used to have students choose stickers by searching through a jar or spreading them all out on our classroom stage, but that took a lot of time and just wasn’t the most efficient system! Then I remembered this pocket chart that I got from the Target Dollar spot a few years ago! I hung it to a classroom cupboard with command hooks, and it is the perfect place to put stickers!

Now my students can see all the stickers at once, plus when they grab one it is quick and easy for them to choose the one they want! I can keep it up all the time and not have to worry about taking all the stickers out and putting them away again! The only think I have to do to keep up with it is add more stickers, which I usually do just once, maybe twice a week!

Using Classroom Management Sticker Reward Cards

When I first started this system, I would just verbally tell a student when they earned a sticker, but it can be hard to remember if it’s in the middle of a lesson or if there are multiple students at once. That’s why I created these sticker reward cards! They are easy to hand out in the middle of class, and then instead of students getting their sticker in the middle of a lesson, they can wait until a more convenient time (like before a break or dismissal) to redeem their reward card!

Where Students Put the Stickers

My students put the stickers on any of their personal belongings that they would like! A lot of them love putting the stickers on their water bottles, folders, notebooks, pencil box, etc.! I even had a student one year who loved putting them on his skateboard! If you are unsure of where to have your students put stickers, I included an option for you in my Classroom Management Sticker Cards where students can put the sticker right on the reward card! Then it also doubles as a positive note they can bring home to show their family!

Where I get my Stickers

These are a few of our favorite packs of stickers from the past couple years! I buy stickers based on what my students like! Sometimes I’ll even ask them what type of stickers they want me to order next!

• Cute animal stickers (these are their current favorites!)
• Food stickers (I took out the drink ones)
• Fun variety of stickers
• Summer stickers
• Roblox stickers
• Among Us stickers
• Minecraft stickers
• Outdoor stickers

Or you can click here to shop all these stickers and other classroom favorites from my Amazon storefront!

Just a note that I always like to go through the stickers before I bring them into my class! Sometimes there are stickers that may not be appropriate included in the large packs!

Sticker Chart Display

I have a whole blog post all about this display chart and how easy it is for students to see and grab stickers from! I also share where I store stickers that aren’t currently being displayed!