Submitted by Jacqueline Lopez, Morris, Connecticut

Idea posted March 3, 2004

SUPPLIES:

1) Foam board 2' X 2 1/2'

2) Black Velcro, 2" wide (sticky back) approximately 6' long

3) Matchbox® cars, one for each team

4) Stickers

5) Game timer (for relay)

6) Approximately 60 questions

This is a game I came up with as a review for my students. Take the foam board and make an oval racetrack using 2" wide Velcro, hook side on the track. Mark the outside of it into 20 even spaces (the length of a Matchbox® car). Decorate the outside of it with stickers depicting a crowd scene, trees for behind the track, extra cars, et cetera. Place a piece of the fuzzy side of the Velcro under each Matchbox® car. I used three cars so as to divide the class into three groups of 10.

Come up with about 60 questions (i.e., music theory, fun questions like having a team whistle the theme to the Andy Griffith show, naming a member of The Beatles, questions about popular music groups, etc.). Each question earns one space forward on the track.

Some questions have team members doing a relay, for example notating the letters for the lines on a staff (i.e., "bead"). In this example, four students per team are chosen to answer the question. One member from each team rushes up to the blackboard, writes one note on the board, and then rushes back so their next teammate can run up to the board. This gets more team members involved, and a timer is used to set a time limit. I used a timer from another game, but a stopwatch or kitchen timer would also work.

I used Velcro only because I wanted to be able to have the game against the blackboard for everyone to see, and the Velcro will hold the cars in place. The 60 questions are easy to come up with by the time you write up questions for all of music theory (i.e., notes on a staff), etc. If some questions seemed more difficult than others, I marked a question mark on the card, which allowed the student to ask one team member for help.

Side note: I used the leftover fuzzy or loop part of the Velcro as the "black keys" on a large foam keyboard display.