This is the display I leave up all year long. I use a chalkboard with laminated music notes with magnets on the back of each one. I love these adhesive magnet rolls! They are so useful for sticking on the back of visual aids so they stick to the board.
There is one eighth note cut out for each classroom. At the beginning of each lesson, I put up M-U-S-I-C letters on the chalkboard (with magnets on the back, of course).
When the class is noisy, I remove a letter. When the class is quiet, I add a letter. At the end of each lesson, if there is at least one letter left on the board, the class music note gets moved over one measure. (I ask a well-behaved student to move the note over, who also receives a music award.) I find that moving a note up can be more effective to encourage good behavior than moving notes down.
For this reason, I also have a set of gold letters. I add one letter at a time to reward them if they haven’t lost their other letters. I am very stingy with these letters. If they receive any gold letters, they can move their music note over a total of 2 spaces. When they ask me, “What do we get if we earn ALL of the gold letters?” And I tell them, “It’s never happened, so I don’t know!”
When a class gets to 10, they receive 10 minutes of a game at the next music period.
6 thoughts on “Music room: class reward plan”
I use something similar but use a grand staff and students move up to earn reward minutes. Favorite reward activity? (I let them vote between freeze dance, watching a music related movie, game we’ve learned or listening to music and drawing.) Number one choice is almost always freeze dance. Wiggly children 🙂
What a great idea! I love that it is positive also, because I always worry about whole class rewards because of the fact that there are inevitably some students who are always great, and their reward is not given because of the poor behavior of 1 or more classmates. Being able to add the letters back is a great solution, as it gives them a chance! Since I teach grades 1-4, I think I’ll do it so that 1st grade uses quarter notes, 2nd grade uses half notes, 3rd grade uses dotted half notes, and 4th grade uses whole notes.
Can you please explain what you mean by letters? I thought you would move their class “note”, so you lost me there. But I’m usually slow to catch on! LOL
The letters mean the letters M U S I C that I have magnetized to the wall.
I really like this! What is your reward for them when they get to the end? Is it something you repeat when they finish?
Good question! When a class gets to 10, they get a 10-minute game at the end of the next music period. I like playing hot potato with a bean bag and fun music. When a student is “out,” I give them a music stamp on their hand. (I have a stamp pads with cherry and grape smells!) 🙂