A new teaching year means new 30 and 40 piece Challenge Charts and certificates! This year Wendy came up with a fun design that uses Pantone’s Color of the Year. It’s a really deep magenta color that feels bright, fresh, and fun. While designing the charts, she also added some complimentary colors that reminded her of something she’d seen before….
Neapolitan Ice Cream 30 and 40 Piece Challenge Charts
These 2023 challenge charts feel just like a big scoop of Neapolitan ice cream, so that’s what we’re calling this years’ charts! And an ice cream party or trip to the snow cone stand is a very motivating reward for most students. The charts themselves can be a great part of keeping up momentum for students in reminding them what they’re working towards!
While Wendy was a little concerned the pink color would turn off some students, she was amazed that even her child who claims to hate pink still liked them! Some fashion commentators have said it’s actually a deep red with some pink hues. And again, if it looks like ice cream, students aren’t likely to complain!
One small change that Wendy really likes is a sheet music on the background, rather than the “30’s” and “40’s” that were there in past years. It’s more subtle, and makes the charts feel a bit more sophisticated.
Get the New 2023 30 and 40 Piece Challenge Charts Here
All of the past features and improvements are included on these Neapolitan 30 and 40 piece challenge charts. Including:
- You can type in students’ names on the wall chart and then print for a more professional look!
- You can type in students’ names on the certificates and print 10 at a time. If you type in the name and date, it will auto-populate and put that information on ALL the certificates at once. That way, you don’t have to keep typing the same information over and over.
- You get a separate student chart you can email to students so that they can print it and put it in their notebook. This is especially handy if you’re teaching students online.
- We continue to include a second page for the wall chart if you have lots of students.
- Files for both 30 and 40 piece challenges are included.
- Certificates are included as well!
What Is the 30/40 Piece Challenge?
You can find out all about this wonderful challenge that Elissa Milne created here. The general idea is that when students are learning challenging pieces, it often means they’re playing the same pieces for weeks on end. Students can become bored, fall behind, and eventually quit altogether when that feeling of stagnation happens. Challenging students to learn 30 or 40 pieces during the school year not only exposes them to different types of music and gets them learning more pieces; it actually helps their sight reading by giving them more opportunities to sight read. It can be a great way to create and maintain momentum for students during the year!
There are a few “best practices” for this challenge: mix in music that is at the students’ level, slightly above their level to challenge them, and slightly below their level to give quick wins that keep them inspired long-term. I personally use Short Sheets® for those quick wins that students need throughout the year. Because they’re only one page, students learn them quickly, while still ingesting music that is pedagogically sound. (Find all of our Short Sheets® and other fun pieces perfect for the challenge in our Student Solutions Catalog here!)
What About Rewards?
While students are often motivated by seeing how they are progressing alongside other students in the studio, throwing in a reward at the halfway point or very end can help with those students who don’t have a sense of self-motivation yet! This challenge does cover the span of the entire school year – which feels like forever when you’re young!
but they are part of the package in case you want to use them!)
Have You Done the Challenge? Let Us Know!
Teachers are always asking specific questions about how to do this challenge, so if you have already done this challenge with your students, please leave a comment with any tips or ideas you have!
Read More About the Challenge:
These are fantastic and can’t wait to use them with my students.
So glad you liked them, LJ!
I have used the 30/40 piece challenge for 2 years now & students really go for learning many different styles of music. My high school students even watch the charts and count how many more songs they need to complete either 30 or 40 pieces. It’s fun to watch the enthusiasm. My advanced students enjoy learning slightly easier pieces.
Love this! I’m so glad it’s working well for you. Thanks so much for sharing with me and teachers how it’s going!
I am trying to order a poster of these online, but I need to separate the files as it will only allow me to upload one page per poster… Could you please send me the files of each page separated?
Hi Molly, These PDFs do not have “security” on them, so you should be able to extract pages from the PDF using Adobe or some other pdf program.