Piano Recital Awards

This week, I had my recital with my piano students.  I wanted to make the night special with some sort of gift and a certificate!  I was going to give each of my students a flower with a certificate, but then I stumbled on an idea two weeks ago, when I ran into a clearance sale at Walgreen's.  I'm actually pretty proud of myself on this one!

I got the Superfruit Starbust regular size candy bars for $.30 each!  I grabbed up all of them that Walgreens had!  There 18 and I needed 16, so it was meant to be! (I only ended up needing 11 because 5 students dropped out the last week, but I didn't know that yet!)

I also found these Certificate of Excellence certificates at the Dollar Tree in the Teacher section.  They just happened be the same colors of the Starbursts - purple and yellow.  I went as far as picking up purple paper plates and napkins to match and printed my programs out in the yellow paper!  I'm not sure anyone noticed, but it made me happy!

Here's the tag I printed out.  I designed one, and then printed 9 to a sheet.  I then cut them out and put a hole in one side to tie them with yellow ribbon to the candy.  The tags say: "You were so awesome at your recital, that my heart BURSTS with pride!  Today you are a STAR!  Congratulations on your great accomplishment!"  This award could really be used for any sport or activity.

I also filled out each of the certificates with a different award for each child.  Here are the awards I used:

• Practicing All-Star
• Splendid Singer
• Most Improved
• Rhythm Rockstar
• Most Determined
• Dazzling Duets
• Marvelous Musician
• Best Attitude
• Budding Musician
• MVP Award

I got really great feedback from both parents and the kids for giving these awards at the end of the recital.  I wanted to create a reason for all the parents and kids to stick around for the end of the ceremony, as well as recognize the kids.  I love that I was able to do the awards for under $5 total, while still giving the kids recognition individually.