I am stuck...please help!

I began using basic Power Teaching strategies at the mid-point in the last school year.
I teach middle school band.
The issue that I struggled with the most was finding good rewards for the "smiley/frowny" part. I want it to be something that the kids really look forward to receiving. I tried manipulating our practice records (they are required to practice so many minutes per week on their instruments), and also used the idea that another power teacher had about rewarding students with music at the end of the week. These worked OK, but was not what I envisioned. Any ideas?

Brett Babineaux
Lafayette, La.

do you do assigned seats? I do, and was thinking a reward could be if they get more smileys, then every after a few days of more smilies they could pick their own seat for the day. You could also do an ongoing thing where if they get a certain number of smile days they could have a snack reward.

How about having a couple of cool pieces of music set aside for an award. I am assuming that your students are either beginners or 2nd and 3rd year students, so still fairly new to playing an instrument. My husband has always found that using a tune that is popular at the time is always a good motivator for the kids (plus, it's just more practice rather than just free-time).

Have your kids been asking you how to play specific melodies or popular tunes? Even the music they hear from video games is popular. Perhaps you could work that in somehow. They bring you a recording of some music, and you help them write out how to play it.

Or, do you have any technology that you incorporate into band (like Smart Music)? Perhaps having a computer day as a reward, but it must be something musical (like writing out a tune).

I remember my middle school days and early high schools days as being the time when I experimented with writing out my own music.

Do some of the kids play instruments other than band instruments (guitar, piano, bass, etc.). Perhaps you could have a "recital" day to let those musicians show off a little. Even singing! How about a karaoke day?

Just trying to keep the rewards music related!

Some great ideas to sort through. Thanks for the suggestions. Even though band...the karaoke sounds like a good idea!

Hi from Shreveport, Bret! For nine years, WAY before I found this wonderful site, I have been using a reward day where the children bring their own music. Mine are elementary, but they bring rock, country, etc. I have a rule that there can be no vulgar language--zero tolerance. I tell them if I ever hear a bad word, no more bring your own music days. But in nine years, no one has violated it. In fact, they will bring me a CD and say, Don't play track#X because it has a bad word.

If you don't trust your students to do the screening, you might spend the dollar to download something popular off the top ten on iTunes or something. To prescreen, you can usually find the lyrics on a lyrics site. I have a good one somewhere. (There are plenty of those sites that aren't good.)

My students are always asking if they can bring their iPods. That is against school rules. But I am thinking of asking my principal if I could have an iPod day. They could bring them to me first thing in the morning (in labeled baggies) and I could lock them in the closet till time for music, then they could get them at the end of the day or something. I use my iPod in a BOSE speaker at school and that is motivating to them.

I also reward them by showing them a cool app on my iPhone. I have one called Tempo that is a virtual metronome and has a tuner on it. too. They love Ocarina (flute...blow in the mic to play it) and guitar and for the little ones, there are sound machines. They like Vehicles and I let them touch the vehicle of their choice to hear the noise it makes. Or we play "guess the vehicle" for sound discrimination. I know that is elementary, but maybe you could think of a way to adapt the ideas.

I love someone's idea of a karaoke day...plan to use that. We could preplan...kids could tell me what song they want out of what we have learned in class and I could send them to Garageband and take the vocals off as necessary.

I thought of something else that I do as a reward. I download cool YouTube videos (think Blue Man Group, iPhone Ocarina, little boy singing Queen of the Night, Riverdance, etc.) and if we finish early due to great participation and behavior, I will sometimes show one to them. They often beg to see them again. Most are 3 minutes or less. Our server won't let us to YouTube, but you can use vixy.net to get around that. If you have to do that, I suggest using their little app because it takes forever to convert them online, if you do have to convert them. I use Mac, and I have to put them in .mov to make them practical to play.