10 Flash Card Games & Activities

March 28, 2016

Sometimes we use flash cards in our homeschooling day. I always thought of flashcards as boring and so I steered away from them for quite some time.

However I soon realized that flashcards can be fun!

I realized that flash cards don't have to be boring and that they lend themselves quite nicely to games and activities. While we mostly focus on math skills with our flashcards, many of these games could be played with a variety of subjects.

Here are just a few of our favorite ways to use flashcards:

1. Playing Spiral-- We set the flashcards up in a spiral pattern and they become our game board. Using counters and some dice we play a fun game. The boys take turns rolling the dice, they move their counter ahead and if they get the flash card fact correct they can stay on that space otherwise they have to go back. We have played working from the center of the game out and from outside in; it really doesn't matter. But it's a fun way to practice facts that a few of the boys are both working on.

2. Flashcard Shoot- Out-- This is a fun activity for when only one of the boys needs to work on flashcards. I'll lightly tape the flashcards to the wall and they can use their Nerf guns to shoot at the cards; calling out the answer for whichever card they hit.

3. Find the Flashcard-- Sometimes I'll hide flashcards around the house and they have to go find them. At some point they must tell me the answers-- either as they find the card or once they have a whole pile. It's fun because it gets them up and moving.

This particular day they wrote their answers down as they found each NUMBERED flashcard.

4. Flashcard slap!-- We set out a handful of flashcards and using the fly swatter the kids slap the fact when I call out an answer.

5. Top This-- Played much like the traditional card game war the flashcard deck is divided into a equal piles and each player puts down their top card; the one with the highest sum, product, etc. wins them all and play continues until just one person has all the cards.

6. Ducks in a Row-- Putting all the flashcards in a pile the boys take turns picking the top card and then they have to line them up in front of themselves with the answers in numerical order; if two cards have the same answer they pile them on top of one another. We usually set a timer and the one with the most cards/ stacks at the end is the winner.

7. Write on/ Wipe Off-- I would not have thought this was such a fun activity if my boys had not told me how much they enjoyed it. Basically I put their flashcards into a mini photo album and handed them each dry erase markers. We were running out of time for math and had to take it on the road with us and I had no worksheets handy. They went through their books, figured out the answer to their flash card and wrote it down with dry erase markers. After I was able to go over it with them they could erase the answer-- that's it! Nothing that I would have considered fancy or exciting but they loved the idea of writing in our mini photo albums with dry erase markers.

8. Bang!-- Played just like out sight word game bang; all the flashcards are put into a giant bin a long with extra cards marked bang (or we have thrown in addition facts with the subtraction facts-- you want something the same size and feel! or else they'll know what the bang cards are and avoid picking them). Players pick flashcards out reading out the answer, keeping all the cards they get right, when a player picks bang! all the flashcards he's accumulated must go back into the middle.

9. Match- Up-- I'll make up a set of "answer" cards so that if there is only one child that needs to practice facts they can practice alone. They'll sit with the pile of flashcards and the pile of answers and match them up. If the flashcards are single sided it can easily be turned into a fun Memory game for two or more players.

10. Pop the answer-- I'll write answers onto leftover bubble wrap sheets and give the boys a stack of cards. They'll go through and figure out the answers; popping them as they get them right.