The Piano Games Summer Program

This summer, we are running a super piano practice incentive for our students. After learning about the copyright on the word "Olympics", I settled for the title - "The Piano Games." I doubt the students will mind - they are more focused on the prizes than the title!

We are still online and won't be returning to in-person lessons for the rest of 2021, so our "score charts" are all on PowerPoint. (Even when we return to in-person, we will still use PowerPoint for games and charts - it is so easy to amend things and put together a quick game to reinforce concepts! PowerPoint rocks!)​

First of all, a big "Thank You" to the fantastic music teachers on Facebook whose suggestions helped me to put this program together.

So we will be having team events and solo events.  The students are split into 4 teams. We tried to make it even by having the same number of students at the same level in each team. We've also made sure that the students who practice a lot are not all in the same team, and the students who practice a lot less are also in different teams.  The team events are:

• Old Pieces: Play a previously learned pieces (at recital level) to earn a point for the team. Students can play as many as we have time for.
• New Pieces: Each completed new piece earns a point for the team. In our classes, a piece is complete when it has been played well in 3 separate lessons. For the summer though, we will count it complete after 2 lessons.
• Games: We play a lot of PowerPoint games in our lessons every week. Each time a student wins a game, they earn a point for their team.

When a student scores a point, we'll "color" one of the blocks for their team. The visual effect will be a big motivator. We did a similar thing with charts on the wall a few years back when we were in-person, and as soon as the students entered the room, they checked the charts to see how their team was doing :)

Solo events are:

• Note Quizzes: We have a whole bunch of PowerPoint games for quizzing notes - Don't miss the bus, Elephant Face, Countdown, and good old flash cards! I will probably put together another one with an Olympic theme before we start in July.
• Rhythm Quizzes: Beat Boxes is our big rhythm game. We will also use the students' pieces and have them clap sections of it.
• Ready To Go: Our lessons are online, and we usually have someone show up without their camera set up properly, or without their books on the music stand. So many have to run off to find a pencil and some have "forgotten" to practice. Avoid any of these to score 2 points. We're giving the extra point here so we can eliminate wasted time!
• Composition: I have been working on some small composition exercises. Students will have a picture or lyrics, and a set of notes to use for the melody. Complete a composition and perform it in the lesson to earn a point.

And now for the most important part, the prizes! I have a ton of miscellaneous prizes - note books, scented erasers, pencils, light up rings, pencil cases etc. from the Dollar Store, Five Below and Walmart - things my teenage daughter tells me are cool prizes . I also came across these eraser medals on the Oriental Trading website. They look better on the website than they do in reality, but the students will like them. Besides, we are packaging the prizes as we did a couple years ago, and that's sure to get everyone practicing lots, lots, lots ​😀

So we will begin in July, and I'm pretty sure we'll amend some of the events before then - (we may incorporate some worksheet events or some coloring events), but this is what we've come up with so far. We will still be online through the summer so the PowerPoint charts will be instrumental in keeping the students motivated. 

You are welcome to download the PowerPoint and to amend it to fit your studio. Create the events, determine which will be team events and which will be individual events, rename the teams if you like, and add your own students names. Even if you're doing in-person lessons,  your students will enjoy seeing the scores each week.

Let us know if you need any help tailoring it to your studio!