This is a sponsored post by StickerYou.
For a few generations now, students have been excited to receive their work back from the teacher, and not just to see their grade. Right there beside the mark would be a smiley face, a silver, or a gold star sticker proclaiming victory over an assignment. Not only did these shiny little tokens symbolize a student’s performance, they were a fun visual affirmation of a completed assignment and progress through the school year — which is to say, progress toward summer. And while kids may have traded in their baseball cards for Pokémon Cards, and Pokémon Cards for Pokémon Go!, they will always love stickers.
Tokens of success like stickers are a great way for teachers to show appreciation and congratulate their students on a job well done, or to encourage them to do better next time. They can be rewards or incentives for good behavior, can spur participation, and generally make class time more memorable. But even classics like the much-coveted gold star lose their luster when overused and overexposed, and teachers looking to really make an impression on their students should consider something more unique and creative. Instead of the same old classic images, teachers can design and print their very own custom stickers from StickerYou, giving students rewards they’ll never forget.
Custom stickers offer a whole world of options for teachers looking to reward, motivate, and inspire their students. With only a slightly larger investment, students can receive truly meaningful rewards that might, with the right care and attention, make them feel seen and appreciated beyond the quality of their work. But truly making the most of these resources requires both creativity and an understanding of what is possible. With that in mind, let’s take a look at the sorts of custom stickers one can make, as well as how best to use them to maximize their positive impact in the classroom.
The most important thing to understand about custom stickers is how flexible they are in terms of both form and function. A custom sticker could depict any image, take any shape, and even sport features beyond just their appearance. By letting their imagination roam free, teachers can really personalize their stickers, not just for their students but for themselves, creating a trademark of sorts by which their pupils will remember them. When kids associate good performance in a class with a particularly cool series of stickers to earn, they will go the extra mile to impress their teacher, and might keep those tokens long after the class is over.
Custom stickers can feature any image the teacher wants, whether it be something they designed themselves, a favorite picture or symbol, or open source art available for free online. Not only are the designs flexible and open to a wide range of artistic tastes, custom stickers can add desirable effects like holograms, bubbling, textures, and even scratch-and-sniff scents (just make sure the smells are pleasant!). The more tactile and interactive a sticker is, the more excited kids will be to receive and display them. Best of all, custom stickers can be reusable, allowing students to take them off of their assignments and stick them anywhere, potentially keeping them for years or longer.
One big drawback of the classic job-well-done stickers of yesterday is their simplistic designs don’t really create an urge to collect. While a few kids might hoard their gold stars, truly unique and interesting stickers are much more collectible. Teachers could make a series of stickers, a different design for each assignment, and tempt students with attaining the whole set. This urge to complete a collection may even win over kids who wouldn’t otherwise be the most devoted students, adding an element of play and achievement that some individuals just don’t get out of education alone. If they happen to end up loving what they learn, that’s a bonus.
It is also possible to use custom stickers to reinforce and continue lessons even after the tests are over. Math formulas, geometric models, pictures of historical figures or art objects, and mnemonic devices can all decorate a sticker. What if a lesson in American geography came with a sticker showing Superman eating oatmeal, since “Every Super Hero Must Eat Oats” is a famous mnemonic for the Great Lakes in order of size. Stickers that remind students of the lessons they learned are a great way to both drive those lessons home and reward the hard work they took to internalize.
The possibilities are endless when it comes to custom stickers. By creating original, collectible reminders of their lessons and their time spent in class, teachers who really want to go the extra mile might even make unique stickers for each student to hand out as a special token at the end of a semester or school year. So long as the stickers don’t eclipse the lessons being taught, these unique tokens can make a class really stand out to its students.
Andrew Witkin is the founder and CEO of StickerYou, a global, e-commerce leader in custom-printed, die-cut products that empowers consumers and businesses to create high-quality materials for personal expression, marketing, and packaging.
