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!