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Last December, I was looking for something new to do in my studio that would get more practice time out of my students. I’ve tried various incentive programs over the years. This time, I decided to make an incentive program using Music Money and boxes of small prizes. Keep reading if you want to know more about my incentive program!
Music Money
I created my own Music Money that comes in the bills of $1, $5, $10, $20, and $100.
I printed the music money on different colors of paper. I printed the $1 on green, $5 on blue, $10 on red, $20 on yellow, and $100 on orange.
How My Students Earn Music Money
To encourage practice from my students, I reward them with one music dollar for every 10 minutes of practice. For example, if a student returns to their lesson having practiced 60 minutes throughout the week, I give them six dollars of music money. If they’ve practiced 45 minutes, I give $4 and save 5 minutes to add to next week’s practice.
Each student writes down the amount of minutes that he/she practices in their music assignment notebook.
The Prizes
I then have buckets of prizes that cost $5, $10, $15, or $20 Music Money dollars. Students can spend their money right away if they want a small prize or they can save it to spend when they earn more music money. I give each student an envelope to keep their music money in. Sometimes students like for me to keep their envelope at my studio and others like to keep it with their music.
Here are some examples of how I fill my prize buckets:
$5 Box:
- Small candies/snacks
- Small toy like mochi animals or animals erasers
$10 Box:
- Small toys like slinkies or balls
- Candy that is a little bigger/special such as Ring Pops or Fun Dip
- Pull apart erasers
$15 Box:
- Larger toys such as squishies, foam, or Playdoh
- Stickers/sticker books
- Special pens (like with a jewel or pompom on the top)
$20 Box:
- Poppers or any sort of fidget toy that kids love right now!
- Full-size candy bars or movie theater box candy
Shopping for Prizes
You can find lots of toys and small prizes on websites such as Amazon or Oriental Trading. My favorite place to find things like this is Dollar Tree.
If you are hesitant to pay for all of these prizes, you may want to think about adding a registration fee to your lessons. My students pay a registration fee at the start of each school year. This fee is used for books and materials throughout the year. I can put some of those funds towards incentive programs like this.
The Results
After using this system for four months, I can say that it really motivates my students! They *love* getting something like money for their practice. Even teenaged students have fun getting candy or a new trinket.
Buy Music Money
The PDF I used to create music money is available for purchase in my shop. Purchase includes both a black and white option to print on colored paper and a colored version to print on white paper.
If you don’t want to print your own music money, you can also find some on Sheetmusicplus.com
2022 Update
Many of my students resumed their lessons after the summer, and they all wanted to know if I’m still doing Music Money! My students love getting Music Money for their practice time and earning prizes. New this year: I changed the storage for my prizes. Instead of having 4 boxes ($5, $10, $15, and $20 prizes), I switched to a 4-drawer storage unit like this one. The drawers make it easier for students to browse the prizes. For the unit I bought, I liked how the first two drawers were smaller, since the $5 and $10 prizes are smaller than $15 and $20.
Lauren teaches piano to students of all ages. She enjoys creating resources for her students and teachers. She is the author of Ready for Theory®. For personalized help, check out the consultations page for teachers.
