Prizes for Students
As educators, we know the importance of rewarding students for their hard work and achievements. However, classroom budgets can be tight, and we believe that teachers shouldn’t have to spend money repeatedly on prizes for students. So, how do we provide students with meaningful prizes without breaking the bank? Here are eight budget-friendly prize ideas that your middle school students will enjoy!
Classroom Reward Ideas
Reward Coupons
If you want an all-in-one solution, these printable and editable reward coupons can’t be beaten! There are ten different options, including rewards like choose your seat, listen to music, drop a low score, take an open note test/quiz, and more! As an added bonus, they are all editable! Check out this set here.
Homework Passes
Printable homework passes are a classic prize that are easy to have on hand at all times. These can be used on homework assignments up to a certain number of points, or they can be for extra credit points redeemed before the end of the grading period.
Our homework passes are also one of our essential classroom forms, which you can learn more about from this blog post.
Positive Parent Contact
A positive phone call home to a parent or guardian can be a wonderful way to not only reward a student but also to build meaningful relationships with them and help keep communication open. This can especially be an impactful reward if these students have not generally received positive phone calls from the school. You can chat about the student’s academic successes, why you enjoy having them in class, how they have improved, some positive character they have demonstrated, or anything else you’d like to share!
Certificates
These can be as simple or as elaborate as you like, but they are a great way to recognize student achievement, especially at the end of a month, quarter, or semester. Use a free online certificate maker or create your own using a program like Canva.
Printable Bookmarks
Many students can benefit from using bookmarks with their silent reading books or even their textbooks, and they become more fun when they can color their own designs! This epic set of printable coloring bookmarks can be a lot of fun and make for great prizes. For best results, we recommend printing them on cardstock or thicker paper.
If you are an Ancient Civilizations teacher, we also have this bundle with designs that pertain to Prehistoric Times, Mesopotamia, Ancient Egypt, Ancient India, Ancient China, Ancient Greece, Ancient Rome, and the Middle Ages!
School Supplies
Since many students often struggle to prepare for class, providing writing utensils or other school supplies can solve multiple issues! Getting a big pack of pens or pencils, especially if they are clearanced at the end of back to school season, can be a great prize option!
Decluttered Items
While this idea might be unconventional, it was very popular with my eighth graders, and I’m guessing other grades would like it too! I tried to declutter unnecessary items from my classroom periodically and my life in general, and also had family members who were trying to simplify too. I set up periodic raffles with my students with extra school supplies that I no longer needed, old National Geographic magazines, random items I wanted to “regift,” and even some old Beanie Babies I had gotten as a kid that were still in pretty good condition.
If students were interested, they could enter their names in the drawing by writing their names on a Post-it I put next to each item, and then my advisory students would help me draw names using a random generator at the end of the day. While it seems simple, and one might not think that anyone would want their old stuff, I was happy to get rid of it, and my students were so excited!
Free Time
While this reward should definitely be used sparingly, students do love free time, especially if they normally have a hectic schedule. You could provide 10 or 15 minutes of free time as a whole-class reward, such as if they received an awesome report from a sub or demonstrated better behavior than normal on a field trip or at an assembly. As an added perk, a bit of free time can give you a bit of time to check in with students about missing assignments. Periodically, my students could earn a whole day of class as a free day if they won the grand prize in my class competition classroom management strategy. I’m sure I’ll share more about this in a future blog post, so stay tuned for that!
Gifts for Students From Teachers
In addition to using these ideas for prizes for students, you could also use them for gifts for students for certain holidays, birthdays, or the end of the year. At the middle school level, gifts are usually less formal, so one of these items could definitely be enough, such as a homework pass. At the elementary level, birthdays are generally a bigger deal, so perhaps some of these elements or ideas could be part of the overall gift.
