Flashy Fun

So recently, I was talking about flashcards, and how my friend, Heidi, taught me how to take them from *yawn* to yowzers! Remember? That post is here, if you'd like to refresh your memory.

The recap goes like this: I learned my lesson that flash cards, when used creatively within the context of a well-rounded course of study, can actually be a whole lot of fun. 

I went so far as to say that my students love them.

Alright, I admit it now. "Love" is not a word that any self-respecting teen would apply to a flash card. 

But I can prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that my daughters have totally bought into this low-tech tool for getting smart. 

They started making their own cards. For classes that I did not teach. At times when I was paying no attention whatsoever to their studies. Whenever they have been faced with the challenge of memorizing a lot of information, they have made flash cards as a tool for learning. Look, I've got proof:

Packets of index cards, neatly organized by chapters in Wheelock's Latin, listing verb endings and declensions and other scary grammatical things that I know nothing about.

Latin vocabulary on bitty little index cards, organized into this bitty little expandable file folder. Little things are always cute, and cute makes everything more fun.

Okay, technically these cards are full of facts from a class Heidi and I taught on U.S. landmarks. But my youngest daughter decided on her own to make these flash cards with state name and shape on one side, and the landmarks we studied from that state on the reverse. I love the colorful pizzazz of her art, and the clicky ring she used to bind them together.

My second-born took a ton of art history courses, which involve memorization galore. Her professors went so far as to create pdf files of  flash cards. By printing off the document, slicing the paper into strips, folding them over and gluing them, my daughter created sets of art history cards with the image on one side, and the important facts on the back. She has stacks and stacks and STACKS of them. Cool.

So when my fourth came to me this week and suggested we make some flash cards for memorizing facts about Europe, I knew that we were both on the same card....I mean page. Here's a little walk-through of how I typically go about the task of designing a set of cards.

Step 1: Gather the information that you want to memorize; organize it in a meaningful fashion.

I had my daughter do this all-important legwork. She Wikipedia-ed her heart out for an hour or so, and came up with this handy-dandy chart:

She arranged the country names, capitals, and flags in neat columns and rows.  Also, because she is very smart, she broke the continent down into five regions: western, northern, central, eastern and southern. There is no magic to those groups, nor is there overwhelming significance to which country ended up in which category. The important thing is that my daughter understood that by dividing the total group of facts into meaningful subgroups, she made her task much more manageable.

Step 2: Chop up some white card stock into useful sized cards and fill 'em up with facts.

As you can see in these photos, we've used a variety of papers and sizes for different sets of cards. To some extent, it's just fun to try new things. But there is a tiny bit of logic to the decision. For example, with these cards, we knew we would be putting just one word, or picture of a flag, on each card. So they need not be huge. I made these by cutting a standard sheet of 8 1/2 x 11 inch card stock into eight pieces. 

Yes, I own a paper cutter. Yes, I am a little bit of a nerd. 

For the flags, sometimes we have taken the time to draw them by hand; if you look at the flag cards in our Middle East deck in this post, you'll seen handdrawn art.

But I'll be honest. While we were putting these flash cards together, we were totally engrossed in an episode or five of Deadliest Catch. Since it was important that we keep our eyes peeled for rogue crab pots, I decided to take the easy way out by printing the flags and just pasting them onto the cards.

Step 3: Make up some fun games!

For starters, we just took the three fact cards for the western region, scrambled 'em up, and started laying them out in a grid by matching the country name on the left, capital in the middle, flag on the right. As you can see, even with our relatively small cards, this layout takes a lot of space, so I'm glad we went with a small size. 

Other simple options for playing might be to lay out the country cards in a column, and deal out the capital and flag cards to two or more players. Taking turns, each player lays one card down at a time, slowly forming the grid. If one player makes a mistake, the others earn the sheer pleasure of pointing out the error.

Or you might put all the cards in a basket or bowl, and allow the players to take turns at drawing them out one at a time. The player's task is to provide the other two facts for the country identified by the card drawn.

So for example, if I draw the card that says 'Vienna," my job is to remember that Vienna is the capital of Austria, and the Austrian flag is three horizontal stripes, red-white-red. Get it? It's fun!

You can also have timed races where one at a time, the players compete against the clock to lay out the grid; you can hide the cards all over a room to add a hide-and-seek element to the game; you can have a leader flip over one card at a time and the players silently write down the corresponding facts on paper.

Yeah, I know that last option sounds like a test. But just pretend it's a crazy variation on a flash card game, and who knows, your students might just fall for it.

Heidi and I loved coming up with crazy variations on the games. We used items such as buzzers, candy and Nerf guns to up the ante.


The more outrageous, the better - that's our motto.

Also, brains remember fun stuff much better than boring stuff.


And of course, if you're willing to get creative, ANY kind of learning can be fun.


Even flash cards.