music practice charts

Mommy, how many times do I need to practice my instrument? This many!

Guest post by Jelaire Richardson

I made these practice charts to help our children keep track of their musical instrument practice sessions. There’s one for piano, one for violin, and one with a generic musical note, each in both color and greyscale. They have 30 numbered circles where you can put stickers as a reward for each practice session, so one chart can last about a month. We usually hang them on the fridge where the kids can see them frequently. They get so excited at the prospect of putting a star sticker or a smiley face on the chart.

One reason I made these charts was that all the ones I found online were calendar-based (i.e., each sticker went on a particular day). But I wasn’t concerned with whether my kids missed a day here and there. Also, I made day 15 an extra big circle, and day 30 be a star. The kids get to pick an extra special (i.e. bigger) sticker on those days. The day 15 halfway point helps keep their motivation up. You can either use this chart to track days practiced and ignore days missed by just never skipping a circle. I find this method works best for my young children. Or you can use to track missed days as well by leaving those circles blank on the days they missed. I was surprised at how difficult it was to find gender-neutral practice charts online. So I tried to make the colors (green and orange-y) and designs (stars and vines) as gender neutral as possible.

For my charts, I use the little round stickers that you can find almost anywhere. Here is a link to the ones I bought on Amazon.com, which are just the right size.