Kids are kids, no matter how old they are

Today I was substituting Spanish for the umpteenth time for a teacher that has been out for while.  I really like the kids, and it's nice to see the same ones again and again for a while, but Spanish is difficult to sub for.  I only took 4 years of high school Spanish so I'm no where near being an expert.  And as a consequence, the kids just end up filling out a bunch of worksheets and teaching themselves Spanish.  It can get long.  And today the kids had block scheduling, so class lasted an hour and fifteen minutes.  Which is even longer in worksheet time.

Because I knew I was going to have to deal with this today, I decided to come up with a motivator.  But I'm poor, so it had to be something small and cheap, and very few of these things exist.  I finally decided to go with Sponge Bob and monkey stickers.  I figured that everyone likes Sponge Bob so maybe the kids would at least find that entertaining.

What I didn't take into account is that kids LOVE Sponge Bob.  Or more accurately, they love getting stickers.  I walked around the room while kids were working and whenever I saw someone who was doing their work quietly and making me happy, I offered them a sticker as a reward.  They were always pleasantly surprised and happy to get it, and every student displayed their sticker with pride, either on their shirt or a book cover or something.  And when kids who hadn't earned a sticker yet saw what was going on, they became desperate for a sticker.  A sticker!  Examples of things that were said:

"You have Sponge Bob?  I want Patrick!"  (Me: I have Patrick) "You do!?  Ok, look I've done 3 sentences!  Do I get my sticker yet?!"

"How many sentences do I have to write to get a sticker?  Ok, but how many?"

"If I don't get a sticker, I swear...."

Kids wanted these stickers, like whoa.  And most kids did eventually earn them, but they did have to earn them.  I'm thinking I'm going to use this method from now on.  But isn't it just great that high school juniors can be motivated by something as simple as a sticker?  I just can't help but love these kids.