It's too late for this year but "March Madness" is a fun theme. Each class can pick the team they want to represent them. Then you can just go crazy with the basketball images, lingo, etc...
With a little creativity, lots of themes could apply.
It's fun to have a staff jar as well. It doesn't usually bring in much from the already overburdened staff but the kids love to see the numbers go into the red on the chart as they drop in their silver and paper money!
Tim is right about daily updates. It keeps the battle raging.
If you have too many individual homerooms, you can do it by grade too.
Some people come into our lives and quickly go. Some stay for awhile and leave footprints on our hearts. And we are never, ever the same."
"The ultimate aim of karate lies not in victory or defeat but in the true perfection of one's character."
4. Use music over the school PA to single the start and end of the time to distribute money each day. There are great classical pieces out there or if you are doing this on a seasonal basis, tie in some Christmas tunes or something of that nature.
5. Offer rewards to the classes with the most pennies, the most cash period, and the most weight.
6. Make sure the purpose of the penny drop is for something other than just the "general fund." If the kids are bringing in their cash it should be either going to something directly for them or to some sort of charity. (This is a great fund raiser for your student councils - and you could help them run it.)
By the way, call it something other than a Penny War. Penny Battle, Penny Drop, Spare Change Challenge. Some people take offense to the trivialization of war.
Got a question about "Penny Wars" and thought I'd start the discussion here. I'll give a quick summary, but feel free to add your own experiences. What do you call this at your school? Any tips or tweaks that have worked for you? Etc.
A "penny war" is a surprising way to make a decent chunk of $$. Each homeroom (or grade) gets a large bucket (those big jugs that water machines use are pretty good).
The goal is to be the homeroom or grade that gets the most "points". Points are gained by putting pennies in your own jug. The "war" elements come in because kids can "bomb" the other classes with nickels, dimes, quarters or dollars. Any non-pennies in your jug are counted against your room's total.
(The good news -- your group gets all the $$, whether they're good pennies or bad bombs.)
Some tips:
1. Make it time-limited, one or two weeks typically.
2. Count every day or every other day. You won't make much if you don't play up the competitive aspects. The dollars really only add up big when folks start dropping quarters and dollar bills as bombs... and they only do that if you drum interest with updates and announcements. Cafeteria is good for the update posters.
3. Talk to a bank ahead of time about using their coin counting machine. Those machines at the grocery store will take a (too big) chunk of your profit if you use them for this project.
