With the start of November, I’ve been starting a new habit in some elementary classes. When I write their names on the board (which is a long-standing habit of mine, as I have found that keeping track of how students are doing “publicly” is a great motivator and encourages students to pay attention), I now accompany their names with a “character.” This is mostly for entertainment value, but sometimes we have little conversations about them too. I have big plans for these characters, eventually, but for now they’re just in a sort of beta. But they’re cute and fun to draw, and it doesn’t really take that long – I do it when the kids are doing a vocab quiz or digging out their homework at the beginning of class.
Cartoon characters for each student is a good idea. Do you base them on the student’s personality or mood or something else, or is each character arbitrary?