Submitted by Truuke Ameigh, Maryland

Idea posted May 22, 2007

At the end of fifth grade, all our students in our school district have to take a test which involves knowing a significant number of music symbols. Everything, including note names, note values, pitch names, and dynamics, as well as terms such as fermata, tempo, rondo, coda, or minor. As you can imagine, it takes some time to prepare the students for this test. I have struggled to find a way to review everything, but this year I found something that has worked well.

I took brightly colored strips of paper and wrote four to five terms or symbols on each strip of paper. I did NOT put the explanation on the back of each flash card. Then, we went around the room, taking turns to identify each until we found someone who could explain everything on one card. This "expert" got to take the card. When I had five "experts" on five different cards, I sent them off to study together, while I worked with the others. I narrowed the class down to the least successful group, which continued to work with me. When everyone had control of the first batch, I went on to another. Finally, every group got all the cards (always with an "expert"). The kids loved this "game," and the review was both successful and fun.