The Gem Jar Practice Challenge - How I Keep My Students Motivated
A few years ago I invented a challenge for my students to help them practice regularly. I had the idea to create a challenge based on the theme of “Gem Jars”. It has been so successful that it’s become a firm favourite in my studio and I’m pretty sure it’s here to stay FOREVER!
The Gem Jar challenge is really quite simple. Students earn “Gems” that they put in a little jar and at the end of each term they exchange the gems for prizes. Children take this project deadly seriously. In turn, I also take it seriously and all around practice habit are really quite excellent!
If you would like to try this in your studio here are the nitty gritty details:
The Jars:
I bought these little jars on Amazon. Each student has one with their name on it and they all sit on the window sill in my studio. I wanted the jars to be small enough so that they could “fill up” with gems as the weeks went by and I wanted them to be clear (glass or plastic) so that they would also look pretty!
The Gems:
I bought a huge collection of multi-coloured glass flat marbles from Ebay. I think they are meant to be used in fish tanks. I love the multi-coloured collection because each student really enjoys taking time choosing their colour for the week.
The Rules:
At the start of every year each of my students gets a brand new MUSIC DIARY where they keep track of their practice each week. This makes it easy to keep track of practice for the Gem Jars.
The rules are easy:
If they practice 4 days in the week they collect ONE gem. If they practice 7 days in the week they collect TWO gems. Lessons do not count! On the last day of the term they count all of their gems and exchange them for prizes in a little “shopping spree” where I act as shopkeeper!
The Prizes:
I buy enough prizes to cover everyone’s gems and split them into three baskets. One of the baskets contains the fanciest prizes that cost 5 Gems. There is one basket that is full of sweetie bags that I make up - these cost 1 Gem, and the third basket is full of much smaller prizes that also cost 1 - 3 Gems (I often change my mind on this!). I usually ask my students what the most popular gadget toys are and try to find variations on those. I search for party favours, stickers, hair bands, fidget toys, pens, slime, etc. etc…. I try to gather these throughout the year when I see things on sale but I usually have to do a mass order of things towards the end of term so I have enough.
The Cost to Me:
Yes, this project does cost money. Especially in my studio where I have nearly 60 students who all practice a lot! Initially, I spent about £75 on the first batch of jars. I’ve since had to replace some jars because they are glass and once in a while a student will drop one! The gems were £30 (if I remember correctly) and every term I spend between £60 - £100 on prizes and sweets (We have three terms every year).
I am fortunate because I am able to spend this money and account it as a business expenditure. However, if I felt that this was too expensive for me to cover personally, I would look for some studio sponsorship from local businesses. I’m considering doing this anyway and putting advertising in my recital programmes. I have two formal studio recitals every year and overall we have nearly 200 people in the audience each time. I have a lot of piano families who own small businesses and I would ask them to sponsor the recital for a small fee in return for having advertisement in the programme. This money would help cover the cost of the practice challenge as well. I haven’t done this yet, but I would do this before I would change how I do the Gem Jar challenge.
The Benefits:
The Gem Jar practice challenge has been one of the most successful things I have ever organised. On average students earn between 8-16 gems and my terms are 11-13 weeks. This means that some weeks they didn’t manage to fit in 4 days but several of the weeks they were practicing every single day. As we know, when students practice regularly they see progress and are then inspired to practice more. This challenge just helps keeps this going.
And they LOVE it. They LOVE prize day and in the last few weeks of term - as we get closer to prize day - practice increases across my whole studio - I couldn’t ask for more!
I do always remind them that the real goal of practice is to become a better piano player. They always smile at me sheepishly when I say this and then turn straight back to digging through the prize baskets!