Remember using flash cards during your childhood? You might have recalled the time your mom pulled and held up a card and asking you to answer. Then, they went back into a pile depending on whether you answered correctly or wrong. But that was past and those cards are slowly going out of the league.
But still, they are a wonderful learning tool, especially for homeschool activities. Being versatile and portable as well as efficient, many kids might get bored of them due to wrong using ways.
Flashcards Also Help Improve Motor Skills
Toddlers start learning various skills while growing up, out of which, fine motor skills are an important one. And, without much specific emphasis, preschohttps://lifelolo.com/ol activities with flashcards help inculcate the practice of these skills as well. Mastering those tiny hand muscles goes a long way in improving handwriting, self-help, and cutting skills. Here, we are going to explore 7 interesting ways of how to use flashcards with kids.
Best Ways to Use Flashcards with Children
Clothespin Cards: This method requires you to gather a few spring-loaded clothespins followed by some preparation before involving the kid. You can use these cards to let your kid learn about colors and shapes. For this, take colored clothespins or apply different shades using a marker on their flat sides. Then, ask your kid to match the said color with a clothespin of the same shade. Similarly for word practice, you can write letters (uppercase & lowercase) on each piece.
And, with some practice, your child can go for self-learning by picking up clothespins and cards, and attaching the matching ones. Further, you can make it easily portable and storable by putting all the things in a tiny container.
Flash Cards Puzzles: Take out that pair of scissors gather some flashcards with pictures along with numbers or letters. Now, start cutting all the cards into halves and you can make them all of the same shapes to make things easier. Besides, cutting all of the same increases the level of difficulty for your kid as well. Moreover, you can add a factor of independent learning here. All you need to do is attach a sticker on all the halves with the same sticker on the matching ones. And, your baby can evaluate his/her performance after getting done with solving the puzzle by simply turning the cards around.
Moreover, for an active child, you can further add movement variations to these homeschooling tools.
Flashcard Relay: Ever heard of a relay race? That could be an obvious yes. But ever thought of a relay race with cards? Yes, that’s one of the interesting kindergarten activities that you can play in schools. Besides, you can go for an easy to complicated setup as per your convenience. Similar to a racing track, create a path with a starting point and show a flashcard by holding up or by calling the item/name. The students competing will then go through the track to pick up an item, another card, or anything else matching with the card. The race ends when one of the students returns to the starting point and puts the item in a container.
You can add more fun and excitement by shuffling cards, adding difficulties across the path, or deciding a movement style. For instance, you may ask one group to race by hopping through the path without touching obstacles placed across. The other can be asked to walk backward with not many obstacles through the path. And, you can add as many modifications as you like to add the elements of fun, challenge, and entertainment.
Flashcard Scavenger Hunt: That’s another excellent method of infusing practice among kids without doing much preparation. For preschool activities using these, you can include items around. Simply pick a colored card from the deck and ask your child to find an item of the same shade. Or, you can change the game to pointing to an item whose name starts with the letter on the card. Besides learning and identification, this can also be used as a fun playtime with the little learners.
Flashcard Hopscoth: Hopping around is common fun activity kids do. And, that’s where you can add your homeschool activities using the cards. Take sidewalk chalk and write answers on the floor that could be a driveway, terrace, or another safe place. Next, pick up a card and ask your child to the initial letter or hop around in the order of its spellings.
This is a wonderful method for grown-up kids who are learning basic calculations, new words, spellings, and more.
Flashcard Fishing: Before you begin with this, get a flashcard set, string, magnet, and paperclips. You can convert flashcards into fishes by attaching paperclips to them. And, create a fishing rod by attaching the magnet to the string. The fun part is, spread the clipped cards around and ask the little learner to grab uppercase & lowercase pairs. Another idea is to spread cards with letters on it and say a word to your kid asking him/her to pick all the spelling letters.
Flashcard Memory: Now, this one’s a classic game where flashcards again fit in perfectly to make learning fun. Take 2 card sets and put them faced down in a grid. The traditional memory games showed the player all the cards for once before facing down. Then, the player would use his memorization skills to find pairs of matching cards.
If your child has mastered this level, you can add more difficulty. For the next level, arrange picture cards with the matching word cards in a grid. This will make the child memorize not only the same looking cards but those having the same item (image and name).
Thus, be it simple flashcards or three-part cards, you can always make them engaging learning tools. Available as printable for toddlers and downloads for kids, these are a wonderful add-on to existing Montessori activities. And, there’s no limit on how many engaging ways you can develop with a single set (or deck). Do share more ideas that can be used to convert learning into fun using these cards.
