Acornes Music — A 68-page student practice notebook for a music club

The brief

Acornes Music came to us for a practice notebook their students could take home each week — somewhere to log the exercises, pieces and theory they'd worked on between lessons, with a clear place for a parent to sign it off.
The book needed to work for younger learners just getting to grips with the stave, and for students moving on to key signatures and rhythm. It also needed to give teachers a simple weekly cue about effort, so the conversation at the start of each lesson started from the page rather than from memory.

What we designed

Working with Acornes, we built a 68-page notebook that follows a student's week and gives them reference pages they'll come back to all year.
• A teal cover with a flowing stave illustration, an Acornes Music wordmark, and a Student's Practice Notebook panel with a name line at the top.
• A Note Reading Rhymes spread — FACE for the treble spaces, "Elephant George Beats Drum Fast" for the treble lines, "All Cats Enjoy Greggs" for the bass spaces and "Georgina Bear Deserves Food Always" for the bass lines — so the mnemonics live in the book, not on a separate handout.
• A three-star weekly tracker — behaviour, work in lesson, practice at home — with a sticker awarded when all three are completed in a week, and a treat at five stickers.
• A weekly practice log with rows for exercises, pieces and theory across Monday to Sunday, a date line and a parent signature box at the foot.
• A Note Tree reference page showing semibreve, minim, crotchet, quaver and semiquaver values stacked as a tree, and a Circle of Fifths spread covering major and minor keys with their key signatures.
• A Notes & Comments page for the teacher to write longer feedback alongside the weekly tracker.

The finished book

The 68-page notebook now goes home with every Acornes Music student each week — exercises, pieces and theory logged on one side, parent signature on the other, and the note-reading rhymes and Circle of Fifths in the back as a permanent reference rather than a handout that gets lost between lessons.