Piano Practice Incentives for the Creative Teacher

As a piano teacher, it can be so hard to convince your students the benefits of practicing during the week. I also remember as a piano student how hard it was to find time to practice during the week on top of homework, other rehearsals and activities, and don’t forget about sleep! Some weeks I didn’t even want to practice piano because I didn’t like the piece my teacher assigned. Even if I did enjoy the piece, I didn’t always know how to practice or how to make my practice enjoyable. I had no incentives to practice piano!

We are able to flip the script as piano teachers now and make practicing piano fun and engaging!

If your students are struggling to practice, choose one of these practice incentives to implement in your studio today.

Tips for Practicing Piano

Some piano students don’t need fun practice incentives, they just need to understand how to practice! Check out my post on Tips for Practicing Piano and grab my ebook to share with all your studio families. These tips include habit stacking, begin and end on a high note, write in your music, and focus on one tricky section. They can help students to have effective piano practice every day.

Practice Challenges

For those students (and teachers!) who would benefit from some fun piano practice, let’s talk about practice challenges! The options for challenges are endless. Take some time and think about your studio – How old are your students? Are all your students on the same level or is there a wide range of abilities? What concepts and skills do your students need the most practice with?

Once you have the answers to those questions, you can come up with great practice challenges for your students. One challenge that can be used at any level is Piano Practice Bingo Cards!

Bingo Cards

Bingo cards are a fun way to encourage piano practice throughout your whole studio. Here’s a great example of how my studio successfully used bingo cards this year:

In October we had a virtual Fall Recital and used bingo cards to prepare for performances. Each student chose one bingo card at their level to complete. Students had 4 weeks to complete every task on their chosen bingo card. For each task, students were required to send photo or video proof so I was able to keep everyone accountable. The first 3 students to complete their cards were awarded a prize of their choice – earrings from A Little Selah, a lego set, or a book of fun music!

These fun bingo cards were an awesome way to make sure everyone’s recital piece was performance ready. Isn’t that what we want?! Download a set of Piano Bingo Cards for Any Level free! If you want more than the 5 cards included, purchase the whole set here.

Ways to Track Piano Practice

For the bingo cards, I tracked everyone’s practice manually by watching videos and looking at pictures from parents. That was okay – and fun! – for the month of October, but I can’t do that all the time. I would be overwhelmed with practice videos! For our piano practice throughout the year, it’s important that students are able to track their progress. Bonus points if they can earn rewards on the journey.

That’s exactly why I use Practice Space. The Practice Space app is a fun way for students to become really invested in the practice they’re doing throughout the week. When students sign up with your studio, you’re able to post all their weekly assignments, including pdf attachments and videos. I love to link demo videos from my Youtube page right to the assignment. That way, if students need help with the song, there’s always a reliable demonstration available.

Piano Practice Incentives

As students login for practice, the app times practice and they earn gems for length and frequency of practice. You can add custom rewards to your studio reward store that students can buy with their gems! Some of the favorite rewards in my studio are music themed stickers, temporary tattoos, fidget toys, free piano books, a custom water bottle, earrings from A Little Selah (use my code HUFHAND10 for 10% off), or a lego set.

The true favorite, though, is “Be the Teacher” where students can be the teacher for one entire lesson! Students have to teach me how to do something and come up with a whole plan. I always ask silly questions but we all love that reward so much. I’ve learned a lot about my students’ interests and they learn that it’s hard work to be a teacher!

How are you planning to encourage piano practice in your studio this month? Choose one of the options or create your own challenge! Leave a comment with your choice for piano practice incentives and brainstorm with the Joyful Community. Don’t forget to grab your free set of Piano Bingo Cards! If you want more than the 5 cards included, purchase the whole set here.