Flashcards

Flashcards are an excellent medium for introducing, practising and revising vocabulary. In this section we offer you some techniques and games which can be used with almost any vocabulary set and which can adapted for use with all levels. (Note: All the following ideas are from the Minibus flashcard pack and the Super Bus resource packs. Click here for ordering information.)

Bingo
Stick a set of picture cards on the board and the corresponding text cards below the picture cards. Ask the children to choose six cards from the cards on the board and write them in a grid on a piece of paper. Then you call out the words from the set in random order. The children cross off their words as they hear them. The first child to cross off all their words and shout Bingo! is the winner.

Pelmanism
Spread a set of picture cards and their matching text cards face down in two separate piles, pictures and text. The children take turns to pick up two cards, one from each pile. If the cards match, the child can keep them; if they do not, they must be replaced exactly where they came from. The winner is the player with the most matching pairs.

April 2003

Shopping
(Possible with the shop cards and food items,  clothes, pets and games cards.)

Stick the shop cards on the walls and lay out the other cards (one for each child) for everyone to see. Ask What’s in the supermarket? and ask one child to call out an appropriate item, e.g. bread. If correct, the child picks up the flashcard and stands under the supermarket card. Continue in this way until each child has a card and is standing by one of the shops.

Now put all the cards together, including the shops. Shuffle the cards and hand them out to the children. The children now walk around the class finding their appropriate shop, using the following conversation, for example:

(Child with the bread card) Have you got bread?
(Child with supermarket card) Yes, I have.
(Child with a different shop) No, I haven’t.

The children with the shop cards cannot ask questions; they have to wait to be asked. Once the children have found their shop, they stay with that child. This game is not a race, as each shop has a different number of items, but the children will enjoy the challenge of finding their appropriate shop.

March 2003

Mime
(Seasons, animals, or sports flashcards can be used in this way)
Split the class into four or five teams and fix the cards at the front of the class. Ask one team to mime the appropriate scene from a card, e.g. playing football/It’s cold. The group who guesses the correct card first wins a point. This group then mimes another card. The group with most points at the end of the game is the winner.

The Alphabet Game
Split the class into three or four teams. Revise the alphabet by showing them the letters one by one or singing the alphabet song. Stick the picture cards from one lexical set on the board and then hold up a letter from the alphabet while saying it out loud. The first child to call out the name of one item of the selected lexical set beginning with that letter gets the picture card for his/her team. The team with most cards is the winner. At the end of the game you can ask the children with the picture cards to stand up at the front of the class holding up their cards in alphabetical order.

I spy with my little eye
Stick the flashcards from a lexical set e.g. animals at the front of the class. Start the game by saying I spy with my little eye something big/grey/beginning with G. The children guess by saying Is it …? The first child to guess which card you have chosen is the winner. Then appoint a child to take your role.

January 2003

Memory game
Stick the picture flashcards and the corresponding text cards from a lexical set randomly on the blackboard. In small groups, the children match the text to the picture cards by drawing lines. When all the cards have been correctly matched to the words, rub out the lines and put all the picture cards in a pile. Put the class into two teams and ask the children from each team, in turn, to take one card from the pile and stick it next to the corresponding text card. The team with the most pairs matched correctly is the winner.

Tic tac toe
(This game is only possible with sets of nine or more picture cards such as: numbers, colours, parts of the body, clothes, classroom objects.)

Stick nine cards from one lexical set in a 3 x 3 formation on the black board. Split the class into to teams A and B. The teams take turns to say one of the cards out loud. If they say the right word, they claim that card by writing above the card A or B. The first team to claim a row of three is the winner.

Pairs
Put a pile of picture flashcards and a separate pile of matching text cards face down on the table. Each child takes a picture or text card. (There must be at least one text card to match each picture card. In larger classes there could be more than one text card per picture card.) The children walk around the room finding the players with the equivalent text/picture card using appropriate language, for example, What card/colour have you got? Have you got a …? etc.

Relay dictionary
Split the class into two teams. Show child A in each team a flashcard. Child A says the first letter of the item on the card to the next child, child B. Child B writes the letter on a piece of paper, when they have done this correctly they are shown the flashcard and they say the next letter of the word to child C. Child C then writes down the second letter on the paper. This continues until the word has been completed The first team to complete the word wins the game.

Word chains
Split the class into teams of five or six children. Take the flashcards from a lexical set and give them to one team, so each child has one card. The first child in the group holds up his/her card and says the item. The second child says the first item, holds up their card and says their item, and so on until the last child has to say all the items. To help the children remember, ask each child to keep holding up his/her card. Every child that says all the items correctly wins one point. Each group does the same with their lexical items. The group with the most points when each team has finished is the winner. You can also ask the children to start the lists of items with a specific sentence, for example, I’ve got a head. I’ve got a head and two eyes etc.

Kim’s game
Split the class into three or four groups. Fix eight or ten flashcards at the front of the class and ask the children to look at the cards for one minute. Remove all the cards, take out two and fix the rest of the cards in a different order. The first group to guess which cards have been take out is the winner.

Guess the item
Stick a set of flashcards (up to ten different items) on the blackboard. Point to each card and encourage the children to say the items. Split the class into two teams and ask them to look at the cards for two minutes. Put the cards face down in the same order. In turn, ask one child from alternate teams to touch a card, say the item and then turn the card over. If he/she has guessed correctly he/she can keep the card for his/her team. If not, he/she puts it back in the place it came from. The team who guesses the most cards is the winner.

January 2002

Floor game
Put some flashcards, facing up, on the floor so that all of the children can see them. Ask a child to throw a coin or counter. When the counter falls on or near a flashcard, the child tries to name it.

Board game
Stick eight or nine flashcards on the board in a circle. Draw arrows from one flashcard to another. The children take it in turns to throw a dice and move along the flashcards as if they were the squares of a board game. When they land on a flashcard they should draw an X and name it. If they cannot, they go back to where they were on the last go.

Noughts and crosses
Draw a 3 x 3 grid on the board and stick a flashcard in each square. Divide the class into two teams, 0s and Xs. Each team takes it turn to name one of the flashcards. If they do so correctly, draw an 0 or a X in the corresponding square. The aim of the game is to get three 0s or Xs in a row.

September 2001

Chinese whispers
Put some flashcards face up on a desk. Divide the class into two teams and ask them to sit in rows. The first two children in each team come to you and you whisper an instruction, for example, Give me a doll please. These children go back to their teams and whisper the instruction to the next child. This child then whispers it to the next, and so on, until the last child in the team runs to the desk, takes the flashcard and gives it to you. The first child to give you the flashcard wins a point for his/her team.

Mime it
Ask a child to come to the front and show him/her a flashcard. He/She mimes what it is and the rest of the class try to guess.

Crouching game
Ask the class to make four lines. Give each line a flashcard. When you call their flashcard, the whole line should crouch down. When they hear a different flashcard, they should stand up.

June 2001

Guess the card
Stick the flashcards facing the board. The children guess which flashcard is which:
Teacher: ‘What’s this?
Pupil A: ‘A cat’
Etc

Board race
Stick four flashcards on the board in a row, low enough for the children to reach. Divide the class into two teams. Call out one of the flashcards and the first two children from each team run to the board. The first child to touch the correct flashcard wins a point for his/her team. Continue with the other flashcards.

What can you see?
Take a piece of blank card a little larger than the flashcards and cut out a small hole in the middle. Move the hole over a flashcard and ask the children to guess what the picture is. Alternatively, put two flashcards face to face. Use one of the flashcards to gradually reveal the picture on the other flashcard. The children try to guess what the picture is.