Once Christmas is past, my brain jumps ahead about 6 months and starts wishing for warmer, summer-type weather, so to keep with this theme, my spring practice incentive is tropically centered.
My students are participating in two different contests this spring. At their first lesson, I handed out a page for their activity binder with information about the two contests.
Practice Incentive #1: Just Mon-key-ing Around
This contest involves each students' weekly practice. I created a palm tree and the students' monkeys climb the palm tree as they add up practice minutes and days. I have always struggled as a teacher with whether it's better to emphasize how much students practice or how well students practice, and while I still haven't come to any definite conclusions, I felt that the contests that emphasize collecting practice minutes generally result in greater diligence on the part of my students. You can see in this picture the palm tree I created with all the monkeys piled up at the bottom waiting to begin their ascent.
Practice Incentive #2: I've Got a Lovely Bunch of Coconuts
I try to encourage memorization with my students whenever possible, but there are some students who just struggle with committing music to memory. I decided to make memorizing a goal for my studio this spring and created a contest to help inspire my students. Each student has a palm tree and they collect one coconut on their tree for each piece they memorize. I hope to encourage my students to take the idea of learning a piece by memory to heart and help them develop good memorizing habits and skills. You may not be able to see from this picture, but a few of my students already have coconuts on their palm trees!
It may still be winter here in Maryland, and cold to boot, but I'm dreaming of the tropics and I hope to see my students excel this term with these two contests!
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