What are some of your incentives after students receive their “diligence dollars” or “treasure chest points.” Do you have something “big” for them to spend them on, or do your students receive smaller prizes? I am trying to dream up something that would get my older students excited as well as the younger ones.
It is definitely a challenge to come up with incentives that will appeal to young and old alike! I try different things every year depending on what our practice incentive theme is for the year. Here are some of the things I’ve done:
Practice Your Way to a Party – At the end of the year, I held a pizza party for the boys and a tea party for the girls if they reached the practice goal they set for themselves at the beginning of the year.
Traveling to Triumph – Students traveled the world and collected special trip dollars along the way. At the end of the year, I held an auction and students were allowed to bid on souvenir items from each of the countries. (view some pictures here)
An American Adventure – At the end of the year, I took the select group of students to a Friday evening rehearsal of our local symphony orchestra when a pianist was the guest artist. Then we made our way back to my house for a fun time of make-your-own ice cream sundaes. (view some pictures here)
The Box Club – The top students in each category at the end of the year formed a board of directors that planned a big studio-wide event. (view some pictures here)
Climbing the Ladder to Success – Students who earned a designated number of Diligence Dollars were invited to go on a special trip to a recording studio where we received a tour from the studio owner and each student was permitted to record one piece. They each received a compilation CD of all the recordings.
Go for the Gold! – Instead of doing one big prize at the end of the year, throughout the year students competed as teams for the most points. At each group class, each member of the team with the most points received three gold dollar coins.
Let’s Have a Ball! – This is another one where I did smaller prizes throughout the year. Students accumulated rubber bouncy balls for a chance to enter their name in a drawing. Then, at each group event I drew three names and those winners each received a prize. Various prizes included: the FJH music dictionary, a composer fandex, classical music CDs, and gift cards to the local music store.
Do any of you have other incentives that you have used in your studios? I am always looking for new ideas!
Remember, if you have a question you’d like to contribute to next week’s Monday Mailbag, leave it in the comments below or send me an e-mail sometime this week with Monday Mailbag in the subject line!
My students earn pom poms in a jar. When the jar is full, they get an ice cream party at their next lesson. They can bring a friend to that lesson too. We play games, eat ice cream, and the student gives a performance to a friend. It’s an ongoing incentive program, so they can earn as many ice cream parties as they want in a year.
Some students have 2 or 3 a year and some take 2 years to get one ice cream party. So it’s effective for those eager students. But the kids without the big picture have a harder time. I think those kids would benefit from a more frequent prize box or something like that.
I love your ideas- especially team points. I also love the incentive of going to a recording studio. That would be such a treat! I’m going to look into something like that for my area.
Hi Natalie…could you expand on the Practice Your Way to a Party? I am looking for a good summer incentive program. Thanks!
This year my students worked on practicing. I have a chart up in my studio, every 5 days of practice gets them a sticker on the chart. (paretns sign off on the practicing.) The kids who have practiced 100 days by the recital get a trophy. Kids who practiced 150 days get a taller trophy, and 200 days get a realy tall trophy! They have loved this because siblings in sports have trophies but those really into piano and not sports had never earned a trophy. Also, kids who had practiced 75 days by 2 months before the recital got to design their own trophy. I used the Friendship house magazine and marked which base/tops they could choose from. This was a huge hit and trophies get awarded April 25th!
Kendra…sure. I think I’ll just go ahead and do a separate post, though, and post it next Monday. Thanks for asking!
Last summer I used a piano olympics theme for my summer incentives. Students competed in various events including practice marathon, 5 finger scale pentathalon, octathalon, expert ears laps, rhythm hurdles, triad triathalon, etc. At each lesson they would “compete” in several events by playing scales, chord progressions, clapping rhythms, identifying intervals by ear, etc. I tracked their progress in each event and at the end of the summer. I varied the requirements to pass off depending on the students level. For example beginners played a I chord in each key for the triathalon and more experienced students played a I IV I V I chord progression and 2 octave arpeggio in each key. I awarded the top students in each event with gold medals. I also gave them little treats when they reached “landmarks” along the way on their practice marathon chart (wendyspianostudio.com). It was especially motivating for some of my students who were always checking to see if they were still in the lead in certain events. It worked so well I decided to do it again this year with even more events.
Thanks for all of your great ideas
Heidi
For the Traveling to Triumph auction, did you collect the souvenirs yourself, enlist parents, or what?