Making Magic Boxes for Practicing Flashcards

We don't often use flash cards in our homeschool since they can be kind of dry and boring.  

I try very hard to make our learning as fun as I possibly can.

Today I came up with the idea to make our flash cards fun! 

We made Magic Boxes to help us practice our multiplication cards on our own. 

The boys were complaining that it's taking them so long to learn their multiplication facts and I explained to them that it's because they don't practice-- ever.  Whatever we do in school is pretty much all they do for the day and memorizing facts takes time.

So I offered to help them make some boxes I remember from when I was a kid where you put in the flashcard equation side up and the box flips it over answer side up; I explained to the kids that it's a great way to test themselves and try to come up with answer before the flashcard comes out the bottom.

We Turned to Making our Magic Boxes! 

We had a lot of fun with this art project!

We covered all the boxes in brown craft paper and the boys pulled out markers, paint and glitter glue.

I searched for a good part of the morning for instructions or ideas on making these boxes since I only had a vague recollection of them. I finally found one picture on Pinterest but there were no instruction so we had to wing it.

Here's what we did:

• I found three almost empty cracker boxes in our pantry that we finished emptying; they were all various sizes but I mostly made sure they were tall and not too thin (think Wheat Thins or Triscuits).  
• I found some file folders (we only needed two since we cut them into 6 strips)
• We needed some craft paper to cover the boxes with and some tape to hold it all in place.  We used the moving tape since it was thicker and more sturdy than scotch tape. 

1. I then took one box at a time and taped all the ends shut securely.
2. Some of the boxes I covered with craft paper first and some of the boxes I tried to cover with craft paper after it was all assembled; I can't say any one way was easier than another.

3.  Once the boxes were ready for the slits I set the boxes aside and cut the file folders into 6 strips that were 4" wide and as tall as each of the boxes we were using  (making two strips for each box).

4.  I put a strip on each of the boxes and marked the sides so I knew how wide to cut my slits.  I set the file folder strips aside and cut rectangular holes out of the top and bottom of the boxes making sure they were wide enough to pass the file folder strips through. 

My markings

5.  Once the slits were cut I fed the file folder strips through one at a time.  The first strip gets taped to the upper hole on the top slip and taped to the bottom of the hole on the lower strip making a slide inside the box.  The second file folder gets taped from the lower slit on the top hole to the upper strip on the bottom hole.  If you peek inside the box they make a giant letter c for the flash cards to ride on.



 6. The older boys wanted to paint and decorate theirs but Evan chose not to paint his.  Ian made a whole scene with trees, grass and the night sky while Alec choose two friends walking in the grass at sunset.  They both worked really hard on their boxes and were so proud of how well they came out.

Hard at work making a sunset

Best of all; they can't wait to practice their flash cards now and used their boxes a few times today!

It's just one of the ways we like to make flash cards fun. What are some ways you like to make flashcards fun?