A teacher at Bester Elementary School in Washington County Public Schools in Maryland is using charm bracelets to help celebrate her students’ achievement in math!
First, she purchased inexpensive plastic beads at a craft store and created bracelets for every student in her class. Then, each time a student passed a fluency percentage in Reflex, they got to pick a new bead to add to their bracelet. The bracelets were all hung on her bulletin board with the students’ photos during the year. At the end of the year, the students could all take their bracelets home.
The bracelets were a big motivation for her students. To help them see their progress, she also showed the students Reflex reports each week, and posted certificates of total facts solved as a class.
Her board headline reads, “We love math.” Next to it, a student wrote on a star, “math is fun because we get to play Reflex,” and another wrote, “I love math because I get to learn lots of math facts.”
The bracelets (and Reflex) were so successful, the teacher definitely plans to use them both again next year!
