make

A teacher friend introduced me to xtramath.  It's a free fact-practice website.  A fact will flash on the screen with a little timeline of ten dots.  If a child answers correctly within 3 seconds a smiley face appears.  The problem stays up 10 seconds before showing the answer.
Each child in my class does a round every day.  Afterward, a rating shows up: a red dot means you missed too many, yellow dots are pretty good and finally... the coveted green dot.
Some kiddos are self-motivated and always try to beat the clock, but others have caught on that if you wait long enough, you get the answer anyway.  If only I could stand over each one nagging and glaring, but there's only so many minutes in a day.
Last week, I made a lotto board (The Green Dot Club) and allowed green dot people to write their names in a square, but gave no explanation.  Yesterday, we had five empty squares so I got busy making this little crayon roll as a prize:

I used this tutorial which went together in about 20 minutes.  The inside pocket matches the ribbon, red polka dot.  First thing this morning, I showed the class (and many friends at school).  We used the random name picker instead of abc order so the first 5 green dotters could be on the chart.  Low and behold EVERY first-grade friend earned a green dot today.  After the grand prize presentation (square 4D) we started a new lotto board.

This crayon roll is the perfect size!  It fits in our tiny supply boxes:

Tiny supply boxes are a lifesaver.  I bought 25 at Walmart this summer.  They hold just enough crayons, a glue stick, scissors, a pencil and a highlighter.  Our backup supply boxes (the bigger ones) are on a shelf with the stuff they brought at the beginning of the year, used to refill as needed.  When tiny supply boxes are knocked on the floor it only takes a second to clean up, as opposed to a regular-sized supply box holding 64 crayons, erasers and a big liquid glue.

I enjoyed making the crayon roll so much, I made a couple more this evening. 

So cute!