Superstars!

I have to admit, I stole this idea from a colleague, but it's so good I have to share it.

The method book we use is Orchestra Expressions published by Alfred.  I LOVE it, and they are not paying me to say that!  Although it's not perfect (no method book is!), it's probably the best I've worked with.  My favorite thing is that they provide rich accompaniment tracks as part of the teacher package, so the kids feel like they're making music even when they're just playing one note... but that's a different post :)

Anyway, the book identifies a couple of tunes per unit with asterisks and wants the kids to memorize those tunes.  My colleague came up with the BRILLIANT idea to type a list of those tunes and hand it out to the kids:  the "Star Chart."  When a student has one of the songs memorized, he or she can play it in the last 5 minutes of class, reserved for "Star Chart Time."  The kid earns a sticker for each Star Chart song memorized.  My colleague also gives a Frootie for each memorized song (see previous post about how much I love Frooties!), but I don't.  I suppose I could.

I decided to take it one step further and create a "Superstar Board" in my room.  For every 5 stickers earned, the student gets to decorate a star and hang it up where they want.  

The hope was that this incentive would increase home practice, but the jury's still out on whether or not it really helped.  I have 4 schools, and the kids seem really motivated at some schools, but not so much at others.  My hunch is that the kids who are earning stars are the ones who practiced before, and the non-practicers are still not practicing.

How do you motivate your students to practice?  We'll save the great "Practice Log" debate for another day.