Bring on the Stopwatch!

One of my younger students has a fairly short attention span.  He's bright and learning quickly, but he doesn't care to sit and do what he's told to do for very long unless his interest is piqued.  We finished up going through our assigned songs, ran quickly through a new one, and had nearly half the lesson left to go.  So my box of flash cards and the stopwatch around my neck came out.  First we timed how long he could go through the 10 notes, then we timed how many notes he could name in a minute.  This was the first time I'd done that with him, and he actually took a breath in the middle of it and said, "This is fun!"  Hooray!  I am definitely seeing the value of being flexible in my teaching, and of keeping various activities around.  I'll be searching for more challenges like this to add to my "bag of tricks!"