1. Homemade flash cards. Math facts, vocabulary words, history facts and more can be written on index cards for practice.
2. Bible study. Index cards are the perfect way to memorize scripture, especially using Simply Charlotte Mason's Scripture Memory Box.
3. Homemade games. From call cards for board games to "fish" for fishing, index cards make it easy to make your own custom games.
4. Timelines. Make a timeline box using index cards.
5. Make a Spelling Box.
6. Word cards. The younger kids are working their way through the Dolch Sight Words list. I mad 15 word cards, initially. As the kids learn them, I pull out the ones they know well and add in new cards.
7. Make review cards. These are a staple of our homeschool.
8. Preschool Tools. From self-correcting math activities for preschoolers to number recognition cards to ABC matching, the possibilities are endless.
9. From the Roots Up vocabulary cards. I'm making my own as we go along, rather than purchasing the set.
10. Organizing thoughts. Index cards are a great tool for older students doing research papers. Notes can be made on the cards which can then be shuffled around to work out the best place for the various bits of information within the paper.
I know there are probably hundreds more uses for index cards in your homeschool. What do you use them for?
Good ideas.
ReplyDeleteI cut them lengthwise, have the kids decorate them (stickers, etc.) and use them as bookmarks. Also you can decorate them as gift cards.
We go through so many index cards a year. I buy them in every color too. Also, I get lots of the rings so that they can keep their cards together easily instead of having boxes.
ReplyDeleteCurrently we are using them as flash cards for the multiplication tables, recipes we find online- we copy down, and to sight words- we label objects and places all over the house for Mackenna to "read".
ReplyDeleteI sometimes use them as a reading aid to isolate a line of text.
ReplyDeleteI tweeted this post on Twitter: http://twitter.com/home
ReplyDeleteWe've also had fun making our own baseball cards from index cards.
Jenny
www.bloggingboutboys.blogspot.com
Thanks for the tweet, Jennifer!
ReplyDeleteOne fun thing we did a while back for gym and language together was for each person to write out a command/direction on an index card, each had to be an action. Then, we randomly drew cards and did the activity. (An example was that one person wrote, "You need to spin around five times and then jump twice.")
ReplyDeleteI kept the cards together, and then the next time we wrote up more cards and added them to the last card. Very fun! ;)
Hey, I'm doing the same thing with the Dolch sight words and the English From the Roots up! We've taken a cue from that and are using it to supplement our Rosetta Stone. German word on one side; English word on the other.
ReplyDeleteI need to locate you on twitter! :)
Noodle,
ReplyDeleteThat's a great idea with the German/English words! I'll have to keep that in mind.
A cheaper version of all these great ideas is to use the paint chip (sample cards) from the Hardware stores (Lowes, Home Depot, etc.). Home depot even has some cool Mickey Mouse shaped ones - for any of you who have kids that may be interested in the "ears" - They also have some leaf shaped ones with a hole that punches out on one side to put it on a ring (which they also supply - free of charge).
ReplyDeleteWe LOVE index cards. I jokingly call them our homeschoolers' dream. We use them for our Latin and Greek roots, to write synopsis of each chapter in Science, and we glue our Story of the World Review crds on them...each day we start with pulling out a card to review....Cells....Caesar Augustus...the meaning of the root "gon"...and each week we add more cards for review. I think it keeps the information fresh.
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