Simple Incentives for Positive Outcome

This morning at 6:35am a 2nd grade teacher called me to sub for her as she felt ill. Since I'm available, I agreed to do so. I didn't thought of calling the babysitter since she was always available. However when I dropped daughter off, she happened to have a doctor's appointment in the morning. All praise be to Allah SWT, she called her friend to help look after my daughter until she came back from the doctor's office.

I told the 2nd grade students about the teacher's illness when I saw them. To start the day on a positive note, I told them that if they were to put on their best behavior, I would let them have extra 5 minutes at the playground. I also told them that if they continue with good behavior, I would play a game with them at the end of the day. All praise be to Allah SWT, the students impressed me by cooperating with one another and reminding those who forgot about class expectations. As promised, I let them have extra playground time and played Charade with them at the end of the day. Although I have also put students on time out as they did not chose to follow directions despite repeated warnings, I gave everyone shining stickers as I reminded them of their good qualities e.g. helpfulness, willing to share, raised hands to answer questions etc. I told them that we are all human, and we are prone to make mistakes. As long as we sincerely repent and not make the same mistakes again, we will be rewarded for our efforts. I want the students to see that we are not 100% bad, and we can make intelligent and positive choices to affect the outcome of our lives. I hope that Allah SWT willing they will put this into practice as often as possible in their lives.