5 Next it'll be poker!

Mushu picture taken by www.michellechappel.net

(Sorry about the pictures - I had just given them to him and he was so excited I shot the pictures in the bad lighting and all!)

The idea struck me for these First Word Flash Cards when my daughter was playing a card game with her friends and my son kept trying to steal all their cards. They had to hand him the useless cards to keep him happy. I thought, why not create some cards that would please him but also have some educational value?

Mason is in the process of increasing his vocabulary ten fold - just the last two weeks he went from not saying sentences, to trying to make all sorts! I thought this would be a great way to encourage him to continue on his quest to learn new words. I used images of items we have around the house and added black text with the word beneath it. I printed these out on cardstock, two to page. They are a perfect size for his little hands.

I also made an envelope to hold these in out of 11x17 cardstock. I printed ABC's all over one side and put "Mason's Flash Cards" about 7 inches up from the bottom. I folded up the bottom (at about 3.5 inches up from the bottom) taped the sides shut and then folded down the top (at about 8 inches down). I trimmed about two inches of the flap, cut of the corners and tucked it down into the envelope to keep it closed.

It really keeps him occupied when we are playing card games with our daughter and at other times as well. I have taken time looking at these with him and he is really trying (and succeeding) with these words.

Happy teaching!

Update - 7 months later and we STILL have these cards.  Mason keeps them on his bureau.  We pull them out and he tells me what each of the pictures are.  Two months ago he learned to spell his name, so now we are working on him recognizing the letters - he knows what an O is (because it is the same as a circle) and he is starting to get down S.  The cards are helping us with that recognition. I love seeing a two year learn so much!