Choose and Review - "50 or Less"

"50 or Less" is a cute variation of "Name That Tune" and comes directly from the Sharing Time Ideas (#3 on pg. 57) in the May 2002 issue of the Friend. List ten songs you need to review on the board. Some kind of illustrative picture or drawing will help the juniors who don't read. Invite a child to suggest how many notes the primary may need to guess one of the songs. The pianist then chooses a song from the list and plays that number of notes. If the children don't recognize the song, the pianist should add one note at a time until the children can identify the song. Write the number of notes it took next to the song and then sing the song together. Repeat with the other songs. The goal of the game is to keep the total number of notes at 50 or less.

The "bidding" on how many notes it will take to guess the song gets easier as you get to the last few songs, because the children can see which ones are left on the list. You can make the game a little more difficult by simply listing numbers from 1 to 10 on the board and have the children guess the songs cold. This keeps them guessing until the end of the game. It is also a bit more of a challenge for the older kids who are more familiar with the songs. Try it both ways and see which your kids like best.