We completed a studio-wide practice incentive in March at our studio and are excited to share it with you today! This practice incentive focuses on helping your piano students to develop efficient practice habits (rather than simply focusing on minutes or days practiced). If you’re looking for a fun way to boost practice time before your spring recital, read on for how to implement it in your studio!
E-FISH-ent Practice Incentive
This incentive takes place over 3 weeks. You’ll find all of the printables you need to promote and carry-out the incentive below. Note: Week 2 of the incentive uses 4 activities from our book “Shhh…Your Piano Teacher Thinks This is Practice” (as that book is also full of efficient practice strategies)… but if you don’t own the book you can come up with your own practice task sheets to still make it work. If you do own the book… your work is already done!
4 Steps to E-FISH-ent Practice Fun
1. Decorate your studio with a tropical theme. Most dollar stores have Hawaiian-themed decor. I found great stuff on Oriental Trading. Practice incentives always work better if your entire studio is absorbed in the fun… so get festive and get decorating!
2. Print out the 11×17 promo poster and start promoting your start-date. Post to your blog and Facebook page about the incentive, add it to your studio newsletter… anything you can do to get your piano kids excited.
3. Print out the parent hand-out and 3 weeks of practice tasks. You will hand out one of these sheets to every student for the next 3 weeks. Their task is to complete all of the challenges on the sheet before their next lesson.
4. Purchase a bunch of small plastic fish (like these ones I used) or print this sheet and cut them out in squares. Get one ziploc baggie for each student participating. Have your students write their name with a Sharpie on the baggie and pin it to your bulletin board, wall or visible area in your studio. This is your “studio fishpond”.
For each week’s sheet that is completed, your student gets to add a fishy to their baggie. Those students who have 3 fish added by the time your incentive is over are entered into a draw to win a prize of your choosing. At our studio we gave away a Siamese Fighting Fish in a small tank. It was a VERY coveted prize… and it cost me $12 for everything.
Have Fun With The Theme!
At our piano studio, it was everything “fish” for 3 weeks. We played fish-themed piano games, we used fishy crackers to name notes on the piano, we composed fish-themed mini-improv pieces in lessons (whole tone scales sound just like an aquarium theme to me!) and we really hyped up “Mr. Fortissimo Fishy” (the Siamese Fighting Fish Grand Prize). Our studio was vibrant and excited… and practicing efficiently!
Enjoy the printables and have some fun!
James says
I love the concept and the materials are excellent. 🙂 I felt I should say though that giving away a live fish as a prize might not be a good idea, they do require more maintenance than people often think to live a long and happy life. Siamese fighting fish can, unlike goldfish, be kept in a small tank but they are tropical and so need a heater and careful monitoring of the water temperature. Might I suggest an artificial tank animal as an alternative? You can get fake jellyfish and toy fish with magnets to make them move which are also really cool but don’t need looking after.
Sue Dugan says
I usually do something fun during the summer. I started getting materials to do this incentive with my students. I have not purchased the book yet and I am wondering what the references are in week 2 about video game recording, Hmmm, etc. . Great materials, just can’t use the 2nd page printout when I don’t have the book.
Andrea says
Hi Sue! Glad you’re planning this incentive – it really was a ton of fun of our students! As mentioned in the post above, if you don’t own the book you can come up with your own practice tasks (we’d suggest 1 sheet per activity with some fun games/strategies that students can do at home with their piece). To make the 2nd week’s download sheet work you could name your practice tasks the same but come up with your own concepts. So many of the readers of our blog own the Shhh… book, so we wanted to make it as easy for them to implement as possible (and printing out the 4 sheets from the book is super easy, but the kids have a blast with them).
Carol says
Thanks for this very, very cool incentive program! I’m planning to use it for summer lessons. Not everyone in my studio takes summer lessons, so I bought the fish (I chose a beta) and set up its bowl and have printed the poster to entice more summer sign ups! Thanks again!!
Rachel says
Love this! It’s easy to implement, can work for different instruments (I teach cello, too), and is short enough to keep the kids’ attention. I have never tried year-long practice incentives for that reason: the kids can lose interest. Would love to see more things like this!
Jane says
This has been the absolute best summer session ever and the kids have no idea what the prize(s) are. Every week they strive to see how many fish they can get in the aquarium (since I teach in their homes, my aquarium is a plastic baggie but they are just as excited as if it was the real deal). I also email them a “Water Music” listening assignment for each week and an activity associated with it. If they can discuss the listening at any level – they get their fish. Now for the playing party – wish you could come!
Emily says
Hi Jane,
I love your idea about “water music”. Could you elaborate on that?
What music do you use? What sort of questions do you ask them?
LantanaMusic says
I did this practice incentive as a “Back-to-School” theme – complete with all the decorating. I added a week to make it four weeks, but I’m not sure that I will do it again. Several of the students didn’t care about winning a prize fish, several had their parents tell them that they weren’t allowed to win it, and I had trouble getting the parents to help the students complete their assignments (even though I explained and decorated several weeks in advance). In the end only 3 out of my 23 piano students were eligible for the fish drawing. That being said, the one student who really wanted the fish was very motivated to practice and did all the work on her own- which was admirable. But, overall I don’t think it was worth the time and effort.
Andrea says
Hello! Sorry to hear that your kiddos weren’t 100% on board. It’s always a good idea to select an incentive (and a prize) that you think will motivate your particular students as every group of kids is different. I’ve found that the more incentives I’ve done the more the parents understand that they have to take an active role… and then more students get to “the end” goal. Choosing time of year is important to to be sure that your incentive doesn’t get buried in particularly busy months, holidays etc. Maybe try again with a new theme in a month like February when not much else is happening 🙂 Thanks for commenting.
Marie Harris says
After the Christmas break this year, I decided to do this incentive and I have to tell you with all of my 70 students every single one of them loved it! It was easy and fun for them! I did turn it into a 5 week incentive instead of 3, which was better for my students since I was wanting to do this up until my Valentine Recital. Because I have a large number of students I chose to do the drawing at my two recitals. We chose 4 students from each recital to win the fish. So I had eight Beta’s. If the students didn’t want the fish, I had the option to give them candy swedish fish. I only had one student who chose the swedish fish out of the real fish. The spare fish I gave to a student who is hating piano right now. Anyway, I just wanted you to know it was fantastic incentive and my students and parents were really happy with it! Thank you so much for all your great ideas!!
Andrea says
This so great to hear Marie! Thanks so much for taking the time to share 🙂 How fun to hand out the fish at the recital!
Rebecca says
I am wondering what age to go up to with the practice incentive programs. Specifically this one. I know the high school students will sit this one out, as I don’t think they’ll be interested in it, but I’m just not sure whether to do it with my middle school students! Please let me know what you would do, or do you use it with all of them regardless of age?! Thank you so much! I can’t wait to get started with it!
Trevor says
Hi Rebecca – you might be surprised… sometimes teens like to “be a kid again”. I make it optional for anyone over the age of 12. It works the best with kids ages 5-11 I would say, but always offer it to the older kids and let it be their choice to participate or not 🙂
Susanne says
I’m excited to use this incentive for summer fun! Thanks for sharing. 🙂 I’m wondering if you would be willing to share what clip art you used for the fish. I wanted to make a certificate to give all kids that qualified (even if they didn’t win the fish.) I thought I’d attach some swedish fish or gold fish crackers. I was hoping to match your cool fish that don’t look babyish. I think my teens will get a kick out of this incentive as well! I appreciate your talents and the fun you help me bring to my studio!
Andrea says
Hi Susanne – I believe I found this set on Fotolia.com 🙂
Taggart says
Thank you! I love this! I am going to have a class incentive to beat down a bad guy and save the whole town by collectively practicing over three weeks time.
Trevor says
Sounds like a lot of fun!
Judith Hobbs says
Some great ideas here, and the worksheets are really attractive and fun. One tiny little thing I have to point out, though, is the spelling of PRACTICE/PRACTISE isn’t always correct. Substitute the word ADVICE/ADVISE and you should get it right! Sorry to be so pedantic but your ideas are so great it would be a shame if this common mistake got in the way.
Andrea says
Hi Judith! Thanks for the comment and for reading our blog! 🙂 As more than 90% of our readers are from the USA we use American spelling for everything. In this case (as per Grammarist.com) “In the main varieties of English from outside North America, practice is the noun, and practise is the verb. There is no such distinction in American English, where practice is both a noun and a verb, and practise is not used at all.”
Amy says
We’ll be doing this incentive in the Fall, when the kids start up school. I was thinking a big bag of swedish fish as the final prize.