Did you know that flashcards games are a thing? I did not, but now I’m obsessed! The other day I told my team about a fun activity I did with flashcards that I bought – which I will spend a post as well some other time – and then other people chimed in with all the things they do with flashcards, and I was blown away! There is so much fun to be had with these things, and I thought I should write a blog post to let you in on that fun as well.
We all know that flashcards are a useful learning tool for students to use when they need to cram a bunch of knowledge. But I am just obsessed with empty flashcards and all the possibilities that come with them. I thought I knew it all, but I clearly didn’t. Let me tell you all the fun flashcards games ideas my team gave me!
Flashcards games ESL students will love
So here are the games that they told me about:
Flashcard Drills
Show flashcards one at a time to a student or a group, asking them to quickly say what’s on the other side (e.g., vocabulary definitions, historical facts, math problems). Increase the difficulty by timing the responses or asking for additional details beyond the flashcard content.
Matching Games
You would need pairs of the same flashcard for this, with each flashcard containing a word on the front and a definition on the back. Spread flashcards on a table (one of the pair is face up and the other face down). Students must find matching pairs, which they can check by turning them over. One of my favorite online flashcards games is one from Quizlet that essentially does this same thing, but digitally.
Flashcard Bingo
Create bingo cards with answers corresponding to the flashcard questions. Call out or show questions from the flashcards, and students cover the answers on their bingo cards. This is one of the best English flashcards games I heard about, because I just love bingo so much! Love the movement, love the competition. So fun!
Flashcard Races
Line up students and show a flashcard to the first student in each line. The first one to answer correctly moves to the back of the line and continues playing; wrong answers sit down. Or create obstacle courses where students need to answer a flashcard question correctly to move to the next stage.
And more fashcard game fun..
Pictionary with Flashcards
Use flashcards with words or concepts. A student draws the concept on a board while others guess what it is based on the drawing.
Quiz Show
Divide the class into teams. Ask questions from the flashcards. Use a bell or buzzer for teams to answer. Additionally, you could assign different point values based on question difficulty. Include “bonus round” questions for extra points.
Sentence Building
Use flashcards with words and have students use them to build sentences. Great for foreign language learning or young children learning sentence structure. Challenge students to create the longest coherent sentence or the most creative sentence using a set number of flashcards.
Role Play
Use flashcards with scenarios or character descriptions. Students draw a card and act out or discuss what they would do in that situation. Verbs flashcards games would be great for this, as students will need to act out an action to show the meaning of the verbs.
Peer Teaching
Each student gets a flashcard and becomes the “expert” on that topic. They prepare a mini-lesson to teach that topic to a peer or small group.
Variation: This can be expanded into a larger project where students create their own flashcards to teach concepts to the class.
Create flashcards games
Now you can easily create these flashcards games yourself with empty flashcards. Just write the words and their definitions on there that you think your students need to revise, and play away! I always buy empty flashcards from Amazon* as school is about to start in September. But I will need to stock up some right now though (April) as I will need to try out these games one by one.
I hope I’ve inspired you to also try these games. Really, I think these are great flashcards games for kindergarten to high school, and I think your students will love them!
*This is an affiliate link, but I love them and buy them every year!
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Why these fun strategies for learning vocabulary will really help your students
