Flashcards tend to conjure such a boring visual. Sitting there, holding up card after card making your child say what's on them. But trust me when I say I have NEVER used flashcards in this way. It's totally unnecessary when there are so many fun ways to use them. Flashcards make a great resource to have in your home to complement your toy collection.
We are often asked when to introduce flashcards. For a very rough estimate I would say 18-24 months but really I would follow your child and when they show interest in a certain topic or you think they might start to be able to match things.
Our recommended sets to start with are below. Mostly these are chosen because they are things children are familiar with in their every day life (body parts or food) or early interests and topics (like animals and colours).
Play Ideas
1. The simplest idea and probably what a lot of people think of when you say flashcards is just putting them in front of your child and asking them what it is. This is great vocabulary practice and if your child enjoys this then that's great but we have some much more interesting ways use flashcards coming up in this list! Also as a note, never pressure or quiz your child maybe answer with them or give them time to answer then say it yourself. You can also take turns so they are asking you questions too. Pressuring can lead to them pulling away and feeling overwhelmed.
2. Introduce movement! Put the flashcards on the couch across the room, in door ways of each room or set up down a hallway. Call out what you want them to find. For example "Can you find the animal that says moo?" "Where is the goat?" and get them to run and find the matching card. They could also act out animal movements if using Animal Sounds flashcards.
3. Matching! Kids love matching and it's a great way to cement concepts and match up a physical object with an idea. The Safari Toobs and CollectA Tubes are perfect for this. Remember you can change up matching games by wrapping the figurines in foil or burying them in sensory play.
- Fruits and Vegetables and Farm Tubes
- Animal Sounds
- Sea Life
- Prehistoric Flashcards and Dinosaurs Tubes
- Transport Flashcard and On the Road Toob, In the Sky Toob or On the Water Toob
Matching is such an easy and fun invitation to play for your child.
4. Colour Hunt! Use the colours from the Colour and Shapes deck and ask your child to go pick things from around the house that match. You can expand this to do it with shapes too as they get a bit older. This is a very fun one but does have a bit of clean up at the end to put everything away!
5. Treasure hunts are always a hit in my house. So get your flashcards out and try hiding them around the house, with each one you leave a clue to find the next one. You can make these visual or simple sentences if your child is working on reading. You could also use the Chameleon Reader for younger children.
Flashcard treasure hunts can be so fun! You can make them themed or not and adjust the difficulty based on their age.
6. Chameleon Reader! You can record the animals sound, the title of the flashcard or further information on a Chameleon Reader sticker. This is a great way to make flashcards a more independent activity that a child can explore at their own pace.
7. For letters, shapes and numbers you can pair flashcards and play dough and get your child to recreate what they see on the flashcards.
8. Number flashcards are great to pair with loose parts you can place the loose parts on top as seen here or just use them to practice counting and even addition.
Adding this to a sensory activity is such a fantastic idea! Loose parts and number flashcards are a match made in heaven.
9. Beginning sound matching. Using an alphabet set of flashcards you can lay out some figurines and match the figurine to the flashcards with the correct beginning sound. For example matching the pig with the "P" flashcard.
This set from Curious Columbus includes felt letters, matching flashcards with upper and lowercase letters as well as imagery to match up to support learning letter sounds.
10. Emotional education. We have a great selection of feelings, emotions and affirmations flashcards but my personal favourite is the Two Little Ducklings Feelings and Emotions set. My son and I like to lay them all then take turns picking them up and talking about when we felt that way today. It's a lovely bonding and wind down activity for the end of the day. It's also a really great way to discuss big feelings out of the moment.
11. High Contrast cards for newborns are such a great resource. You can use them for tummy time, placing them vertically to encourage head lifting. You can also place them in a circle around them to motivate them to turn and pivot. They're also great for practicing tracking (hold it above baby's face and move slowly left to right and up to down). Tracking is great for strengthening baby's eye muscles and training their eyes to focus.
High Contrast cards are fantastic for developing newborn's eyesight. You can display them next to change mats, use them at tummy time and practice tracking with them with strengthens eye muscles.
12. Using flashcards to support real world exploration or discuss previous adventures. My favourite sets to support this kind of exploration are the trip around oz (discussing your or someone els's holiday), garden friends (garden hunting or nature walk), world animals (zoo trip), nature play prompts, weather or days and months.
13. Posting is such a popular activity with babies and toddlers. Posting with flashcards is a great way to incorporate language development into the activity.
For this posting activity I would use any card themes that your little one is interested in at that time.
14. You can use them as background decoration for a topical set up (like dinosaurs) or to supplement and add information to a themed set up (like Space or Planet Love for an environmental education activity)
The Space Flashcards are a perfect addition to this space-themed
exploration table.
There are so many specific sets with more unique ways to use them like the Play Card Co decks or the Mindful Munchkin Yoga Cards but hopefully the above gives you some ideas on how flashcards in general can be a fabulous resource to incorporate into your home in more fun and creative ways.
Bonus! Some of the Two Little Ducklings sets come as doubles so you can do memory matching or snap with them.
Double Bonus! Some of the Two Little Ducklings sets are actually a puzzle and you can match them all up to create a long line that flows together.
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