Class Dojo and the Olympics.... Win... Win!

My seventh grade class has been amazing lately and I wanted to find a way to capitalize on their academic and behavior successes.  First off, I wanted to set up an academic Olympics to coincide with Sochi. If I wasn't so new to my curriculum I could have probably lined up my unit on Greece with Sochi but I wasn't on the ball enough for that.  I decided I was going to split them into six teams: Norway, USA, Russia, Canada, Germany, and Austria.  Students are competing for points based on hard work, being on task, helping others, and academic success.  The gold medal team will get a pizza party and there will be individual awards as well.

I thought this was a great time to test drive Class Dojo and I was correct!

Before I started I wanted to lay the hook.  First, I just started having them walk into class with a live Olympics feed playing on the board.

Then a couple of days later I just started using Class Dojo in class one day when the kids were studying for a vocabulary quiz.  It was hysterical!!! They started to figure out how to get points and then they were scrambling for them.  They had no idea what they were earning or why!
I finally let them in on the secret (one kid kept begging me!) and things went awesomely!

Kids earned points for all the things I mentioned above.  Every night I calculated the team score.

Because not every group was equal in size, we decided that the average was the best way to determine a winner.

The kids have loooooooved it and have asked to continue it all year.  I love Class Dojo but it is a little daunting.  I use my phone and I spend more time watching my students than interacting with them because I am trying to be fair about rewarding points.  I have promised them that we will do a monthly challenge!

Comment below and tell me some of your Class Dojo stories!!!