When I pick my kids up from school, they’re not exactly a fountain of information about their day. So when my kids’ art teacher set up a page for their classes with the free Class Dojo app, I was so thankful.
Here, he can share everything from photos and videos to their behavior in class on their profile, and it makes me so much more prepared to have meaningful questions for the kids when they get home in the afternoons. Plus, my kids can create their own portfolio, with photos of their work and notes about what they enjoyed, which is a great starting point for conversations too.
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Class Dojo is a behavior management system for classroom teachers to use, and it’s been a huge hit with my kids. They each have a profile with a little monster avatar to represent them, and throughout the day their teachers can set alerts for poor behaviors, send photos and videos, and acknowledge their good behavior with Dojos. These are customized by the teacher with the traits they’d like to see in their students, like active listening, working hard, GRIT, and more, with some teachers (like ours) letting kids “spend” their Dojos on rewards in class.
Although Class Dojo is designed for classroom use, I know a few moms who have set up “classrooms” for their own children, and they use the dojo system to manage their behavior at home. Since the kids are used to following the system at school, it’s been easier for them to keep everyone’s behavior on track during their no-school hours too.
You can download the Class Dojo app for iOS or Android, or ask your child’s teacher to set up one for their classroom. It may just be the tool they’ve been looking for.
