Have you ever considered hosting a piano practice challenge in your studio?

I love challenging my students to practice a specific number of pieces, measures, pages, minutes, days, at a predetermined tempo, or accomplishing a specific goal or goals over a short period of time. Why? Because practice challenges are highly beneficial to students in a number of ways.

How Practice Challenges Benefit Students

• Help students stay on track when preparing for a recital or other performance
• Get students back into the swing of things after a break or at the beginning of the piano year
• Promote consistency in practicing
• Friendly competition
• Require more practicing than some students would normally accomplish on their own
• Some students thrive on being challenged
• Grouping students together can promote teamwork to be successful in the challenge
• Promote responsibility and accountability
• Help build internal motivation over time
• Show students they are more capable than they may have thought
• Encourage creativity in practice time (fitting in a few extra minutes before school, after dinner, etc.)

The Rules of the Practice Challenge

• Our challenge is 2 weeks long: Long enough to be beneficial, but short enough to feel attainable.
• For practice challenges that are based around minutes practiced, students write down the number of minutes they practice each day on the corresponding piano key.
• My students are required to practice, for example, at least 20 minutes a day, for 5 days each week during the challenge.
• Students who meet the goals of the challenge (and goals do change for each challenge) will have their names placed into a drawing to win a gift card!
• I check their practice minutes (or goals, pages, tempo, etc.) during their lesson and provide praise, encouragement, motivation, or whatever my student needs throughout the challenge.
• At the end of the challenge, they text a picture of their practice challenge chart to me.
• I check to see who qualifies for the drawing and add their names to the Decide Now app for iPad.
• I video myself spinning the wheel to see who wins the gift card!
• Then I send an email announcement with the video to my piano families.
• Last, I send the gift card to the winner.

Host Your Own Practice Challenge

• Download a set of practice challenge charts:
  • Winter and Christmas
  • Valentine’s Day
  • Summer Vibes
  • You can also use these practice challenge charts and digital stickers with your students! Use them digitally or print the fun colorful designs.
• Print them and give them to your students. I like to print them onto white card stock.
• If you’re teaching 100% online, you may email the charts to your students and have them print the charts.
• Share the rules of the challenge with your students and their parents.
• Let the challenge begin!

Share About Your Studio Practice Challenge

1. Join my Facebook group for piano teachers and let us know how your studio practice challenge goes! Be sure to answer all of the membership questions to be admitted into the group. I look forward to seeing you there!
2. Follow me and tag me on Instagram when you share photos or videos of your practice challenge: @melodypaynepiano
3. Follow my page and tag me on Facebook when you share photos or videos of your practice challenge: Melody Payne – Music for a Lifetime

More piano teaching ideas & resources:

• Save Time With Over 200 Print-and-Go Music Theory Worksheets!
• Cultivating Motivated Students in the Piano Studio
• Goals for Piano Students and Teachers: How to Set and Achieve Them
• How to Use Printable Sticky Notes in Piano Lessons