Flashcards games

One of my favorite teaching materials is "Flashcards", because there are just sooo many games you can play with them and make lessons really fun. Here are some ideas that came to my mind just now, but there are tons more out there.

1. Have the children close their eyes. Hide the flashcards everywhere in the room. Depending on the age of the children you can also just place the cards openly into different corners of the room.

Have the children open their eyes. Call out a card. The children run to find the correct one. The child who finds it first receives a point. Repeat until no cards are left.

2. Another version of this is .. use big flashcards (DinA4) and pin them to the wall. Call out a card and have the children run to the correct card tapping it. Those who tapped the right card get a point.

3. Pin all flashcards to the board. Drill the vocabulary. Have the children close their eyes and remove one card. The children then have to guess which one is missing. You can start with just a few cards (also depending on the age of the children you may want to start with 3 or 4 cards).

I usually always increase the number of missing cards until I remove all the cards from the board and the children tell me all the new vocabulary they just learned.

4. When you are teaching the alphabet, a great way to learn the letters is to give each child a flashcard with a letter. Have them mingle or dance around in the room until you give a signal. The children have to get into a correct line as quick as possible to form the alphabet (or part of it, depending on your class size).

5. A great way to teach colors, shapes or the alphabet is to put the flashcards in a bag. For example, if you teach colors, put the flashcards in a bag so that the children can’t see them and have each child pull out a card. Then it has to look around the classroom and tell you all the objects that it can see with this color.

If using the alphabet you can have the child name all the things it knows that start with that letter.

6. Prepare a box and a ball. Show a flashcard and have the child say what it sees on the card (cover the word with a finger if written on the card and children know how to read). If the answer is correct, the child is allowed one shot. For each ball that was thrown into the box, the child receives one point.

7. Make 2 teams. Draw a grid on the board. Use different sets of flashcards. For example, if the topic of the day is “animals”, prepare the animals flashcards, but also 2 other sets (preferable 2 that they already know). Pin them all on the grid (one card per field). The children of one team then have to name one field (for example A3). You turn the card and the children have to name the card. If it is part of today’s lesson, the team wins the card.  You can do this activity either as teamwork (all children of one team work together which might be easier to start with) or have the children of each team line up and have each child in the line compete against another child of the other team (try to arrange the lines in a way that the level of the competing children are pretty much the same).

8. Make 2 teams. One child of one team comes to the front and picks one flashcard. It can then either try to mime or to describe (depending on level of the children) the object on the card. If the team can guess the correct word, they get one point for their team.

9. Place 2 sets of flashcards on the floor in a straight line. One child at the end of each line. You give the signal for the start. Each child starts walking on the flashcard one by one, naming the card as fast as possible and proceed to the next card. If the child names a wrong card, it has to go back to the beginning of the line. Winner is the one who gets to the end of the line the quickest.

10. Hide one flashcard in your hand. Have the children guess which one it is by asking questions. The child giving the correct answer wins the card. The child with the most cards wins the game.