Every week, almost every teacher provides their students with an assignment sheet or practice log of some kind. It can be as simple as post-its and notes written in a method book or as fancy as videos, recordings, and links sent through an email or app.
I have used both of these incarnations and everything in-between. But I find myself continuously going back to a simple weekly practice planner.
While how to structure a practice session may seem intuitive to a lifelong musician, our little students (and their practice coach parents) need help getting set up for success. Having a clear outline of what activities to cover and a way to keep accountability is the best way to keep home practice and communication between teacher and family effective.
You can find a ton of assignment sheet ideas that I have often borrowed from here and here. I also like the practice charts included in the Step by Step series, and I have occasionally had my students use a fancy practice journal like this one or this. As students progress, the assignment sheet should progress along with them.
Here is the practice sheet I'm currently using for my 8-12-year-old Suzuki Book 1 students. It covers the three main areas I want my students to focus on: listening, warmups, and repertoire. Each day a student completes the activity, the grey boxes can be checked off or marked with a sticker. The listening and warmup sections have space to write in activities or paste a bit.ly link or QR code to a YouTube playlist or warmup video. The practice planner sheet also has areas for writing down new concepts, reminders, and extra notes or activities, like theory homework or games to play at home. Download it for free below:
Evernote is a great way to keep track of assignment sheets and student progress. I create a notebook within the app for each of my students. Each notebook has a note for their practice plan that gets updated in real-time as we go through each lesson. Keeping track as we go through the class keeps me from having to scramble at the end to write everything down before the student leaves. At the end of the session, the note can be printed and taken home, while I get to keep the original in Evernote and access it from any device. I can also email the practice planner to the parent straight from Evernote and include any attachments, such as PDFs or links.
The Evernote notebook for each student also contains copies of any special assignments or repertoire, checklists for theory and music history concepts, scans of judging sheets from performance evaluations, and any other pertinent information. Evernote can store text notes, photos, videos, and sound recordings. It can clip and save web pages and emails and lets you save and edit PDFs. Evernote does not sponsor this post; I just really love using it :) It's one of the powerhouse apps that run my studio behind the scenes.
What's your favorite style of assignment sheet or practice log? What could I add to the practice planner to make it even more perfect for your studio? Let me know in the comments or send me a message on Instagram.