We have all had that student (or students!) who can’t leave Velcro alone… they just have to pick at it. It can be challenging to have a work for or token economy strip when the student has peeled off all of the functional bits. Here is an alternative that has worked really well in my classroom.
Our work for strips started out looking like this. We make them out of flexible binders from the dollar store. Click the picture below to read more on making your own work for strips.
The bits of Velcro slowly disappeared… as did the writing! We needed to think of something else because the strips were no longer functional and pennies were falling all the time. Here is what we came up with…
We took a slightly smaller token strip and put it inside of a photo box. The student attaches the picture of his reinforcer onto the strip and then we put it inside the box with the lid closed. As he earns pennies, we attach them to the strip. Having the staff put the pennies on the strip keeps the student’s hands away from the temptation to pick.
Here’s what it looks like on the desk:
If you have more than one student who needs a box to hold their work for card, you could use different colored binders to make the work for cards or you could use multi color photo boxes.
