What I Don’t Do
I don’t reward individual kids for their positive and expected behaviour which is something that should happen consistently. I also don’t penalize students who are having a hard day. And that will happen, some days will be harder than others and it won’t be in control of the student. It is very circumstantial. I talk a bit more about this here. I don’t have competitions for rewards within that class because there will be times where I won’t see a student for a few days due to their absence. I’ve done this before and had many issues with the “fairness” of the individuals who ARE there everyday. That’s a headache that we just don’t need. These are 3 strategies I do to avoid giving out prizes in the music room.
What I Do…Do
I do group “incentives.” I’ve combined a few strategies that have really helped. I’ve outlined them down below!
Strategy #1- The Star
My students love video game characters, especially Nintendo characters. I was inspired by another music educator with this strategy. I made a star to look the Mario starman, but cut all of the points off (make sure to laminate). After that, I stuck magnets to the back and have the star live on my whiteboard. The goal for the students is to keep the star pieces all together in order to advance in the next strategy.
Their job is to maintain the music room expectations already established. If there is a moment where the expectations broken, a piece of the star will be removed. This can progress a few different ways. The students can either earn that piece back by fixing the behaviour, or they lose another piece. In the first month of school, I will talk the process through with the class about the situation and the reason for the movement of the piece. After the first month of school, I don’t draw attention to the star, but maintain the process. This gives them accountability for their actions and the responsibility to adjust accordingly.
Strategy #2- The Game Piece
I’ve done this part a few different ways. I’ve had a giant guitar poster on my wall with each class having their own guitar pick. When they complete a class with the star intact, their guitar pick advances up the fretboard. When they get their piece to the end of the guitar, they get to vote on an activity to do at the end of the next class. The catch is, it has to be something we have done in the music room. It could be a music video we watched previously, one of their favourite centre activities, a game they enjoy or instrument time (including play alongs). After this activity, their piece moves back to the beginning. I like this system because I can choose the amount of “levels” that the piece travels.
The guitar I used had 10 frets, which meant that the bonus activity would happen about once a month, as I see my students every other day in a 6-day cycle. Now the issue I had with the single guitar is that it was too big. I am 5’4” and I created the guitar to be about 6 feet tall. It was a struggle to move the guitar picks up and slowly became more infrequent. It was awesome for the students to see their progress, but logistically, it didn’t work.
Another type of game I used were the keyboards. I will be returning to this strategy this year but a modified version. Previously, I’ve had each class with their own keyboard. It was great but I have on average 15 sections so it took up too much space on my wall. Due to fire codes, I’m only allowed to cover 20% of my walls. This year I will be condensing this strategy, to each grade having their own keyboard. This will let me have 5 keyboards- one for Kindergarten, Grade 1, Grade 2, Grade 3 and our 2/3 split French Immersion classes. Each time a class ends their 30 minutes with the star intact, the game pieces will move up the keyboard.
Strategy #3- Conductor of the Day
Again, this takes a lot of prep at the beginning of the year but relieves so many headaches throughout the year. Each student and teacher get their own name tag, colour-coded of course. Every student will get a chance to be my helper. My next post will go a little more in-depth about this. However, I am mentioning it here because this is the icing on the cake. It helps each student feel seen, important and really helps build community. Part 2 of this post, 3 Strategies I do to avoid giving out prizes coming soon!