Magic is in the Air

Do you ever have a hard time getting your children to clean the room at the end of the day?  Well, those days are over!  Magic Piece of Trash and Magic Chair are your new best friends.  I TOTALLY forgot about this excellent trick until my student teacher called out for a magic piece of trash the other day (she found the idea on another blog).  I had been doing this trick for YEARS (I learned it from one of my high school teachers back in the 90s...ugh, that hurts to even say that....90s) and somehow it just got lost in all the other good ideas I have found over the years...but don't worry...It's baaaaaaack!  :)  Here's how you do it:
1.  Scan the room for trash.  When I say scan...I mean scan the WHOLE room (or your sneaky kids will see where you are looking and always know where to go).
2.  Call out to the students, "I see a magic piece of trash."
3.  Students scramble around (safely of course) and collect all the trash they can.
4.  Once all the trash has been picked up, you announce to everyone that the magic piece of trash has been found.  Call the child's name and have them pick a piece of candy, healthy snack, homework pass, DOJO points, whatever it is that you reward your kids with.  
You will be amazed just how exciting it is to pick up trash!!  This can also be done with stacking chairs at the end of the day.  My kids love it! You can be as honest or dishonest as you'd like to be when picking the winner of the magic piece of trash or chair.  I always find this a good time to reward my little friends that don't get rewarded very often academically.  :)  It works for kids of all ages (remember...me as a high-schooler in the 90s used to scramble for that darned piece of trash). 

Clean on.