This post looks at 5 flashcard games for young learners. These activities are a great way to practice vocabulary and speaking with young learners .

        1.  Flashcard Story

Give students some flashcards in pairs. Get students to invent a simple story using the flashcards. The students tell the other students in class their stories.

2. Team game

Have ready two sets of word cards for the same flashcards for this game. Divide the class into two teams. Stick flashcards (as many as there are children in each team) on the blackboard or on the walls around the classroom. Give one word card to each child in both teams. When you call out the name of one of the flashcards, the child in each team who has the corresponding word card gets up and goes to touch the flashcard and hold up their word card as fast as they can. The child who gets there first each time wins a point for their team.

3. Classify the words

Draw two or three large circles on the blackboard and write the topic words at the top of each one e.g. animals, food, clothes. Children take turns to come to the front of the class, either individually or in pairs, read a word card that you give them and stick it in the correct circle.

4. Flashcard whispers

Children stand in two lines facing the blackboard. Secretly show the last child standing in each line a flashcard. This child then whispers the name of this flashcard to next child and so on up the line. The child at the front runs to the blackboard and draws or writes the word. They then go to the back of the line. Repeat the procedure several times.

5. Ball game

Have a soft ball ready for this activity. Stick 8-10 flashcards on the blackboard. Children stand in a circle. Hold up the ball, say One, two, three… and name one of the flashcards on the blackboard e.g. Dog! as you throw the ball to a child in the circle. The child who catches the ball repeats the procedure and names another flashcard. The game continues in the same way until all the flashcards on the blackboard have been named.