I'm looking for suggestions for whole-class rewards for 8th and 9th graders. Surely there are some creative ways to reward the whole class other than free time, or a pizza party. What rewards motivate these 'early' teens? :confused:

Have you tried asking them what they would like to do as a class? Children like to have choices, ask them for there opinions, have them put them in writing and deposit them into a 'comment' box. At some point go through the suggestions and pick out the top 3 that you are able and willing to do and have the students take a vote on which of the 3 they would like. Or rotate the 3 options.

I put this basically because kids right now including elementary kids are all into mp3's and iPod and of course it would be hard to provide each of them with music downloads, due to the types of music they listen to and that not every child has an iPod, most do, but not all.

Hope that this helps some.

The thing with rewards is to make sure it is something worthwhile. I am a high school teacher and my kids respond well, and really want food. It may not work for you. They also always want new seating charts. They will work very hard to get a new seating chart. Whatever you do, I would stay away from free days.

I know you said OTHER than free time, but I figured I would share this one anyway. At the beginning of the year, I tell my students that "time permitting" I will give them the last 3 minutes of class as fee time where they can talk to their friends or work on homework whatever. Now on the flipside, if they talk during my lesson then therefore they have used their free time and thus do not get it later. (I take off time in one minute intervals) Believe it or not they really REALLY want those 3 minutes and they shut up quick when you threaten to take it away.

Advice on giving candy and such. I made that mistake once. It works for other teachers fine, but for me it was too much of a burden. I had to spend my own money on it, and after a while it just got too expensive!

If you give homework a lot then you could reward the class with a night of no homework. If they go to lunch while they are with you, then you could take them to lunch a couple minutes early. If you have access to computers, a few minutes of free SUPERVISED time on the computers is always a class favorite.