GAME DAY- Deck of Cards

When you tell kids they are playing a "game" it changes everything. I love seeing how much fun kids can have while playing and learning at the same time. I think many of us think that we need to go out and spend a lot of money on games and workbooks, in order to reinforce our child's learning at home. I am going to dedicate one day a week to a GAME DAY post where I will offer simple ways to reinforce learning at home. 

I am sure most of you have a deck of cards at home. There are so many great learning opportunities with a simple deck of cards, and they are easy to take on the road with you for when traveling becomes a little restless. I would love to here about ways that you and your kids use a deck a cards to play and learn at the same time. 

These ideas can easily be modified to fit your child's academic level. 

**Start by taking out the jacks, queens, kings, and jokers. 

1. War (or you can call it another name) :) split the cards among players, everyone flips over a card, the person with the highest card wins and collects all the cards played in that round *greater than/less than

2. Turn over 2 cards- add, subtract, or multiply the cards, the person who has the highest sum, difference, or product wins the cards in that round *addition, subtraction, multiplication

3. Deal the cards into 4 piles (face down), turn over the top card on each pile, try to pick up the cards that when added together make 10 *addition, sums of 10

4. Turn over cards and have child identify the number, you can then ask what comes before, what comes next *number recognition

5. Turn over between 2 and 9 cards (depending on their level) and have them say or write the number in standard form, word form, or expanded form *place value

                  Example- turn over 3 cards- numbers 6,5,4 -- That number in standard form would be 654, in word from "six hundred fifty-four", and in expanded form 600 + 50 + 4

                  You can then work with your child to determine the "value" of each number. 

Let me know if you need more ideas for your deck of cards GAMES! :) Have FUN!!!