Homeschool Helper with Charisse Van Horn

I love index cards. They are so easy to use and make great learning tools.  Whether you are using them to create flashcards write words, draw pictures, or glue items you can create a number of different learning tools and games with index cards.  They also come in a wide assortment of colors.  You can select basic white or even flourescent colors.

For this game, all you need is a pack of index cards and a marker.  Write a capital letter on one side of the card and the lower case letter on the other side.  Place the cards on a table, capital side up, and call out a letter.  Have your child find the card.  When your child can identify all of the capital letters, flip the cards and play with the lower case letters.

This is a great game that will help children with their letter recognition as well as develops their phonetic skills. For this activity you will need a number of brown bags (lunch type) and mark each bag with a letter of the Alphabet.  Have an assortment of small toys or items that start with each letter of the alphabet.  If you can’t find enough toys or items you can cut out pictures from magazines and paste them onto cardstock.  If you would like to make them more durable laminate them.  Have the child match the toy or card to the right bag.  This is a great way to reinforce the sounds of letters with children.  You can easily adapt this game by using buckets instead of paper bags, etc.