Busy Toddler » Play » Game Time » 4 Simple Card Games
Author: Susie
Four card games to play with your child that are super simple.
Don’t worry, this isn’t “how to teach your child solitaire” or “toddler’s first Bridge game”. I promise. Adjust your meaning of the term “card game” down to a toddler level and now we’re talking. We’re talking super simple card games.
Playing cards were a supply I used all.the.time in my kindergarten classroom (BK – before kids). It’s way more fun to show a playing card #5 plus a playing card #2 than just writing 5+2 on a piece of paper. Playing cards are little pieces of laminated magic. Trust me. They’re instant math fun.
Materials:
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I haven’t used playing cards before in an activity with toddler so this was a brand new project supply for us to play with. It was a hit. We sat together for about 20 minutes (twenty minutes!!!) playing with our cards. Definitely wasn’t an independent, “I can unload the dishwasher while supervising him” kind of activity, but it had so much learning in it that I had to share.
During our 20 minute card-fest party, I came up with 4 super simple card games to share with you (remember the term game is being used rather loosely here).
Just seeing the cards was an “oooooh, aaaaah” moment for him. We started by inspecting them and I showed him the different suits and colors. He was hooked. The buy-in factor was totally there for this activity.
Game 1: Simple Sorting.
I pulled out 3 cards from each suit (12 cards total) and laid them face up for my 2.5 year old toddler. I put a red card on the left and a black one on the right and simply asked him to sort the cards by color. Simple enough, a great “ice breaker” activity for our first game with the playing cards. Sorting is such an important math skill so he’s learning tons here classifying by color.
Game 2: Make a Match.
I took the 12 cards from the sorting activity and paired them down to just six. This time, he needed to flip the cards over to find matching suits. We did this in the same vein as Memory, but think toddler memory so mostly just flipping over random cards until we found two diamonds, two hearts, and two spades. I don’t know why the clubs didn’t get to play here – apparently they were in time out or something.
Game 3: 52 card pick up.
I’m not kidding in the least. I’m 100% serious that we did this. I let him throw the whole set around. Obviously, parameters and guidelines were given, but I let him go for it. He threw them up, he made it rain, he did what every little kid wants to do with a stack of card. And then he’d scoop them all up and do it again. Actually, it was a nice little gross motor skills intermission during our card play with his jumping and dancing here.
Game 4: Guess and Sort.
Once things simmered down from our 52 card pick up, we worked together to turn every card upside down. Then, we started a pile of black and a pile of red at opposite ends of the massive upside down pile of cards. He’d touch a card, guess red or black, flip to reveal and insert toddler giggles here. Didn’t matter if he was right or wrong, he loved every minute of the anticipation and flipping the cards over. A perfect way to end our card play!
Ok so maybe he isn’t moments away from learning Cribbage, but he is starting to see the fun and value of playing cards and Future Me is thrilled about that. Playing cards will become very valuable tools in our lives in the coming years so I’m happy to expose him to them already with these simple card games.
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Debbie says
Tip from retired teacher here: most casinos retire decks of cards after set number of plays. Ask the dealer or someone else at the casino if you can have some of the discarded packs of cards. Some casinos will give you almost as many as you’d like and others will ask you for proof you’re a teacher and only give you a limited number (say 10 packs). The cards often have a hole punched in them or something so they don’t end up back in play, but it won’t bother the kids!
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Phyllis Blakeslee says
I came up with a toddlers first card game. Shuffle card deck, put face down in one pile. First player draws a card. If red end of turn. Place in their pile. If black, draw another card until you get a red card. Other player’s turn. Player with most cards win at the end of drawing all the cards. Typical a near tie ever time. Lots of exciting comments and sounds make it more entertaining.
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Katie says
Thank you so much! I teach preschool ESL twice a week for 1 hour at a time. Most lesson plans involve A LOT of prep. Today we reviewed numbers and colours, and then the rest of the time we played with cards! I distributed some cards to all the students and said “Red, please” and had them put a red card into a basket. If they put black, I’d make an over exaggerated reaction with “That’s not red!” and they’d all giggle. And to make the memory activity easier for ESL, I used two decks of cards and had them match exactly the same card. They would take two cards and we’d inspect them by counting, colour, and the shape as well. Then I’d ask “Same, or different?” And they LOVED 52 pickup, it was the perfect way to get their attention back when they started to drift. So again, a big thank you for the great idea!
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Lindsey says
Awesome! I’m always looking for new ways to play with my daughter. These are educational too. Pinning!
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Tina says
These are clever ideas for toddlers to play with a deck of cards! Thanks for sharing on Toddler Fun Friday 🙂
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Jacquie says
You have such fun ideas! I remember loving the ‘make a match’ game when the kids were little. Our kids would always call ‘shovels’ instead of spades 🙂
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Hil says
Cute! I should do that with my toddler too. Great idea thanks.
You should come link up at our Bloggers Spotlight party on Thursday, we pin everything to our group board and have two separate link-ups, one for posts and one devoted to pins so you get even more exposure!
http://www.raisingfairiesandknights.com/category/bloggers-spotlight/Reply
Ruthie Gray says
I always love your ideas! This is great, I’m getting my deck of cards out next time the Tiny Tornado comes over and we are doin’ this!!!
Thanks for sharing at Tuesday Talk! You’ve inspired me!Reply
Erin @ Stay At Home Yogi says
What fun! I haven’t played with cards with my toddler yet either so thanks for these ideas!
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Kristen says
Wow! 52 card pick up…genius! It seems designed for a toddler! I’m a little nervous about the mess, but my daughter will love it!
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Maria says
In an attempt to spice up my toddler’s day this week, I contemplated introducing a deck of cards to her, but came up empty handed on what else to do besides counting. This post comes just in time. Will definitely be using your activities for this weekend and next week. I’m sure my daughter will love it all, especially the sorting part. Thanks so much for another helpful post, Susie. I’m so glad you were able to share this on #SHINEbloghop this week. Have a wonderful weekend!
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busytoddler says
I’m so glad you liked these ideas, Maria! Many thanks for hosting such a great link up!
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CJ Huang | Morsels of Life says
I’m always amazed at what will keep a kid occupied and for how long. 52 card pickup sounds like something kiddo would like, and the other games sound like great learning games. 🙂
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Chelsea @ Life With My Littles says
These are awesome! I bet my toddler would love them!
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