Ideas for 3 X 5 blank index cards?

Question

I have a new set of 100 blank index cards and I am wondering if anyone has some new fresh ideas for a good use for them. I have already done the flashcards thing, so I'd like something different. I am cleaning our bookshelf that holds all our school supplies and I found these.

I'd like to incorporate it into either math (fractions, graphing, greater than less than), grammar (nouns, adjectives, verbs, punctuation etc.), history (Greeks and Romans),science (botany) or another helpful household way. Home-Economics would be interesting too...

Thanks so much for your help!

Answer 1

One year we used them to help learn Spanish, and Lakota.

My daughter who is now a teacher uses the same method.  We pasted pics of different words and taped them to the object.  We wrote the word in each language under the pic.  We had little note cards all over the house, but it was fun and an easy way to reinforce common words.

Answer 2

Check out http://www.homeschoolwithindexcards.com/... .

Answer 3

MATH:

You could make a math puzzle.

1. Take about 16 flashcards (you could use more if you'd like) and set them up in a 4 by 4 square. On one side of all the cards, create a picture or design of some kind. You can let your child do this if you'd like and just not tell them what it's for until later, or if you have 2 or more children, have them do this for another child.

2. Once your picture puzzle is made, take each card (the pieces) and on the backs, write a math problem that will give a whole number answer 1 through 16.

3. Shuffle the cards and give them to the kids. As they go through and solve the problems, the number will tell them where to put each puzzle piece. (1 goies in the top left corner, then 2 next to it, etc. 5 starts the next row, then six, etc)

**Variation: Instead of making the answers numbers 1 - 16, have the children order them from least to greatest after solving them. If 14 is the lowest number answer, it goes in the top left corner like 1 did, and so on.  You could also put coordinates on the back of each card instead of math problems, and teach the kids how to use coordinates to determine where each peice goes.

Use as markers for graphing

1. Think of a survey you'd like the kids to conduct, maybe in the neighborhood or in the homeschool group, or at an activity. Maybe something like "what's your favorite sport"

2. Have the kids make a big graph on poster board and teach them to lable it properly.

3. Draw designs on the cards to represent the different sports. (Draw baseball bats on some, soccer balls on others, basketballs on others, and so on) Also write the name of the sport on each set of cards

4. Fill out your graph by pasting the cards onto the poster board like a bar graph.

Fractions Manipulatives

  1. Lable one card 1/1. Do nothing to it.

  2. Cut one card in half. Lable each half 1/2 (preferably in a different color than the 1/1)

  3. Cut one into thirds. Lable each piece 1/3 in a new color

  4. Cut into fourths. You get the idea from here.

Use these as you see fit.  Laminating these and/or putting sticky magnets ont he back can make them sturdier.

Greater/Less than

  1. Cut 12 cards in half. Now you have 24

  2. Make 2 sets of numbered cards. 0 - 9.

  3. On the remaining four mini cards, draw a greater/less than sign (it can be flipped to be one or the other), a equals sign, an equal to or less than sign, and an equal to or greater than sign.

Have fun with your kids setting up two numbers and figuring out which sign should go between them. You can also work on number lines while you do this. Writing the numbers on paper would be just as easy, but kids tend to enjoy lessons where they get to move and manipulate things a lot more.

ENGLISH

Make a memory game.

1. Take abount 20 or so cards (or however many you want to use). On half of the cards, write the names of different concrete nouns (you don't have to limit your child to concrete if you don't want to.), verbs, and adjectives. If you'd like, your child can draw an illustration above the word on the card.

2. On the remaining cards, write the words Noun, Verb, and Adjective. If you want to throw in something extra, include Proper Noun. Be sure there are as many Noun cards as there are word cards that are nouns, etc.

3. To play, set up the cards face down like you would in any memory game. Kids take turns picking up a card and trying to match it with something. Example: Child picks up a word card that says "Run". Child now has to find a card that says "Verb." Child picks up a card that says "Adjective" now child needs to find a word card with an adjective written on it.

Sentence Manipulatives

1. Cut cards into fourths (they wont need to be very big, and this way you have more to use).

2. Write a good variety of words on your minicards that a child could arrange and rearrange to make different sentences.

3. If you'd like, write all the nouns, pronouns, verbs, and adjectives in different colors.

4. On some of the cards, write commas, question marks, exclaimation points, periods, semicolins, quotation marks, etc.

Use these as you see fit. One suggestion is to make a scrabble like game where children take turns drawing a certain number of cards out of a bag and earn points for making sentences out of the cards they have in their "hand".

HISTORY

Greeks and Romans? Hmm, have to think about this one a bit.

You could make another memory game like the one above. Match letters of the greek alphabet to letters of the roman alphabet... Match historical figures (rulers, gods, scholars, warriors, etc) with their acomplishments or what they are remembered for. Your kids could make a jeopardy game (kind of a variation on flashcards) using information from the unit and simple categories like People, Places, Inventions/Discoveries, Events, etc. Let them be creative!

HOME EC

Another tough one. The first thing that comes to mind is recipe cards that the kids can fill out to remember anything they really enjoyed preparing durring a lesson.

You could aslo make an assignment bag. Write different ideas for cooking, sewing, or general home-ec projects, and at the beginning of the week have your kids draw one randomly from a bag and let that be their project for the week. You could do things like "Plan/prepare a meal for family/friends", "Sew an apron/tableclothe/blanket/pot holder/etc", "Imagine you are head of a household and create a shopping list and budget for the week." Be creative!

SCIENCE

Observation notes

1. You say you're studying plants? If you have a microscope, the kids can examine different parts of various plantlife. They can use the notecards to record observations quickly and easily.

2. If you conduct any experiments with plants, you can use the cards to lable the control plant, and the variables for all the others so you don't lose track of which plant is which.

Make a Pocket Cell Reference

1. You can make one of these for a plant cell and one for an animal cell. Depending on which cell you are working on, you'll need a different number of cards.

2. Start with the cover of your booklet. One one card, have the kids write a title for the booklet and draw and color a complete cell, plant or animal. For the example, I'll use a plant cell.

3. Each page inside the booklet will be for a different part of the cell. So on the next card, kids will draw a nucleus, lable it, and write a brief explanation of its function.

4. On the following pages, do the same with cytoplasm, cell wall, cell membrane, ribosomes, chloroplast, mitocondrian, etc.

5. Once all the pages are finished, there are a number of ways you can bind the booklet. Take a metal brad and put it through the top corner of all the pages so that you can easily turn pages up and out of the way. Another way would be to punch a hole in the top and bottom left corners of each page and bind them all together with string or ribbon. (Maybe use a green ribbon for plant cells and a red or brown ribbon for animal cells).

**Variation: You can make the same kind of pocket reference book for parts of a plant, how plants reproduce, the oxygen cycle, etc.

If you do want to teach the carbon/oxygen cycle, you can have the kids make a card for each part of the cycle and then arrange them on a chart and put on a presentation.

If you want to make model cells (Jell-o cells are great fun, but you can use non-edible materials as well), the kids can lable the parts of their models with the cards.

One fun project would be to assign each child to a plant and have them do research on it (Use the cards for research notes). Instead of simply writing a report, they can personify their plant and write a little talk-show or news broadcast skit where one child interviews the other and the child being interviewed answers as their plant. Kids can use the notecards to write interview questions and have them ready durring their skits. They can be creative with their questions, but find ways to include where the plant is native to, how it reproduces, what animals and people use it for, what kind of climate it grows in, and any other information you want to include.

I could go on forever with this, but I'm sure you don't want to read a five page response. I hope this helps!

Answer 4

My daughter is using them to make a feild guide for science. She's studying birds.

Answer 5

hmm...i like to draw my pictures on there. for instance i had a physical science test the other day for my homeschooling site and it said something about H2o but also had a picture of the process.if you have any things that are in a process or soemthign you could do that.also for history you could write a timeline.that would be fun

Answer 6

You could make a timeline with them.  Find clip art and/or photos online, print them out, and mount them on the cards.  Then make a wall timeline or a timeline in a notebook/binder.

I LOVE the timeline figures from this publisher:

http://www.homeschoolinthewoods.com/HTTA...

I wish she would have had the CD-rom version before I purchased two sets.

She has a great timeline helps page here:

http://www.homeschoolinthewoods.com/HTTA...