Affordable Prizes for Rewards

I have seen so many ideas shared about prizes that we can give out to our students when they make achievements.

Now I know some of you might be thinking "isn't the reward being able to play that piece of music"?

Yes, it is! But some young students might not feel as proud of themselves after they've made a huge achievement and their teacher just says "good job" with a pat on the back.

Here's how we can give awards to our students for all of their hard work so that they will feel encouraged to KEEP working hard.

I'm going to be sharing my favorite prizes and awards that are not only time-saving but also doesn't cost much!

Click here to watch the original livestream!

 

Physical Prizes

• Dollar Store - candy, play dough, slime, nail polish, Rubik’s cubes, mustaches
• Amazon - bulk pack of animal erasers, emoji plush keychains
• Target - light up yo-yos, glow in the dark putty, pull back toy cars, kazoos

Billboard Certificates

Instead of giving prizes you can recognize their achievements by using billboard certificates.

• All you need is a cork board and printable certificates.
• I always recommend printing off the certificates onto colored card stock.
• Students can take photos with their certificate and you can share the photos on your website/Facebook page.

 

Taking Photos with Signs

These are one of the cheapest options! Print off a sign onto colored card stock acknowledging an achievement a student has made. Examples could be finishing a book, earning a number of points, etc. View all of our achievement signs right here.

Take a photo with the student holding the sign to share online, within your studio, or with the parents

Recommended to laminate to allow for them to last forever

Try getting some props from the Dollar Store (hats, scarfs, funky glasses) for some extra fun

 

Sharing Studiowide

Sometimes making a big deal of the student's achievement can include sharing it with the whole studio! This can be done in a few ways:

• The "Billboard Certificates" (above)
• Posting the student's achievement on the wall (i.e. their recital performance certificate)
• Writing their name on the whiteboard with the achievement 
• For our studio's drawing contests, I simply put up their drawing on the wall and have the student take a photo with it

Sharing Online

Let's take a step further with sharing within our studio to online! As long you have the parent's permission, you can share photos or videos or even just word posts of the student's achievement.

• Sharing on your Facebook page
• Inside your Facebook group
• OR your website (kids love this the most)

 

Trophies

I purchase trophies and medals for my students for earning the most points or the longest number of days for the 100 Day Practice Challenge. I buy my trophies and medals from Crown Awards.

• Small trophies (~6 inches) cost about $6-7 per trophy
• Medals cost about $1-3 per medal
• Ribbons cost about $0.50 per ribbon
• Music stickers (2 inches) cost about $0.30 per sticker

Easy Challenges and Prizes for Summertime

If you are planning something specific for the summer, you might want to check out the Summer of Music songbook. It is filled with specialized challenges for each piece along with an incentive for the student to earn "beach bucks". The songbook comes with the beach bucks and you will only need to print them or cut them out from the hardcopy book. Click here to take a look at the songbook!

 

Take a look at this new release!

This week we just released a new holiday songbook perfect for intermediates called Christmas Twists.

Christmas Twists is currently on sale right now. Click here to take a look at it!