Tonya's Incentive Ideas

Now that the dust is settling from my first year of Keyboard Gymnastics participation, I thought I would post a few of the incentives I used, and hopefully other teachers will too, I would love to hear them!

TREASURE MAP: KEYBOARD GYMNASTICS PROGRESS

My sister drew this map for me, it is poster-sized. I had it laminated. I had each student design their own "flag" (little squares of white paper), and then laminated those. I made a key to the map, and explained to each of them that it would track their progress through the year.
The spaces worked out perfectly so that if they did all 7 areas, they would make it to "X Marks the Spot." So after they would take their technic, theory, or any other test, we would have the excitement of them moving along further on the map. Obviously younger student were way more into this, but it helped to have a visual for the older kids too. Once they got to the end (which was just this week since we just had solos), they got a "bag of treasure" which is a brown paper bag all wrinkled and tied with twine, it has gold coins and york mints in it ("silver and gold!").





SKITTLES JAR: PRACTICING!

(This idea adapted from David French)

This jar has been sitting on my piano for the past 3 weeks, and next week the skittles in it will all go home with one student. Here is how it works: Each week I check the students' practicing record to see if they reached their weekly practicing goal, and marked it in their record. If they did both those things, they get to fill out a ticket (little carnival tickets I have, they are like $3 for a roll of tons of them at Zurcher's or the dollar store) with their name and a guess for how many skittles are in the jar. Next week I will count up the skittles (or approximate by looking at the serving size on the bags!) and sort through the tickets to find out who guessed the closest, and they will get all the skittles! I have done this many times, sometimes with if they did their theory, if they memorized something, etc. It works somewhat well but is really a motivator for kids who have won the candy already, the others forget about it because they never saw what happened to the candy if they didn't win. It's fun to see their guesses though, I have had everything from 100 to 10,000.

SOLO QUIZ: MEMORIZING SOLOS

I have used this for many years, in preparing for festival, certificate of merit, sonatina festival, or any time students have spent a long time with one or two pieces. I just whip it out at a lesson without giving them any advance notice. It is interesting to see what they know off the top of their head. Usually they get the title, first note, and last note for sure. Sometimes key, time signature, and tempo... and they hardly ever know the composer. Thus the reason for the quiz! I think that if they spend so much time with these pieces, they should know this basic information! The first note/last note thing helps with their memorizing as well. SO, once they have completed the quiz, we go through their pieces and I have them write in the correct answers for the ones they missed. Then I tell them that the next week I will ask them one or two things from the quiz, and if they get it right they get a treat. Most of them come back knowing every little detail about their pieces!




STOP LIGHT: SOLO PREPARATION

I used to use this for festival, and I ended up just pulling it out again this year. (That is why it has "scales" at the bottom, I would have them learn the scales in the key signatures of their pieces for festival) I explain that they get a sticker on each light once they have a piece memorized. There is extra room at the bottom of the paper, and I make a list with the student's help of what a piece needs to have to be "correctly memorized." (i.e., notes, rhythm, dynamics, pedal...) Then once they get all 3 stickers they have the GREEN LIGHT to perform awesomely! And they got a theater-sized candy. This year for the "Scales" thing, I just made the stipulation for the green light that they had to have their technic test done.







PIZZA CHART: SIGHT READING

We have done this before, but since the kids were doing a sight-reading test this year, I thought it would be great timing. We did this chart from February thru April.

First, at our group lessons in January, I had each group vote on 2 or 3 Fruit Pizza toppings they would like to have for Fruit Pizza. Then we added them all to the poster. Each student's name is down the side, and the pizza toppings are across the top. Each week at the beginning of their lesson, I would have them pick a sight-reading example out of an envelope appropriate to their level (I used the K.G. examples for all but the really little kids), they would have one minute to look it over, then they would sightread it for me. If they did 95% correctly and DIDN'T stop while playing through it, they got to put a sticker on whatever they wanted for their pizza. I should note that the first week we started sightreading for this, I had them go through the "sightreading list" I have next to the piano--1. find hand position, 2. Look at rhythm, 3. Look at dynamics..... etc. So each week they practiced properly looking at the piece before playing it.

The pizza chart is all done and the kids have put stickers on all the toppings they want (no make-up stickers are offered for kids who miss lessons, that's why some don't have as many as others), and next week at our group lessons I will have the toppings and the pizzas ready and they get to build theirs with the toppings they earned. They LOVED it last time and it is a fun little way to make sight-reading more interesting.

~Tonya