Get ready for the very best of the best preschool card games! When my little ones get to be about 3 or so, they get to start joining in on some of the board game and card game fun that happens around here (oh yes, it’s a wild home we have friends!)
I really do love card games for preschoolers. They can be SO full of learning. Preschoolers can learn about taking turns, playing fair, being a good sport, and honesty. They can also learn some numeracy and literacy skills – all through the power of play.
I wrote a post a little while ago about a great card game to play with preschoolers that works on loads of math skills. You can find that post right here: Teaching Math to Preschoolers with Playing Cards!
Today I wanted to share with you a card game that will have your little three year old (or four year or any age for that matter) learning their letters and sounds by playing ABC Go Fish!
Santa Claus GO Fish, a Christmas Card Game for Kids (GO Fish, Old Maid, and Slap Jack), Play 3 Classic Kids Games Using ONE Holiday Themed Deck, Ideally Sized for Use as Stocking Stuffers. Go Fish Rules: Go Fish is a classic children’s card game that can be played with any deck of cards. While there are decks of cards specifically designed to play Go Fish – often with fewer cards and numbers than a standard deck of cards – specialized card decks are not necessary to play this game.
I have shared with you before the order I recommend for teaching children their letters. We play this game using those groupings of letters.
So, the first grouping of letters we teach is our child’s name letters. If we were working on that first group of letters, the name letters are the one’s we would play ABC Go Fish with.
The second group of letters are: s, a, t, i, p, and n. If we were working on the second group of letters, those are the letters we would play with.
Go Fish Game Rules
You can grab your very own FREE printable pack all about the groupings of letters, why we teach them this way, and awesome activities to practice letters and sounds right here:
My nephew Carter now knows all of his name letters (woohoo!) He knows the lowercase letters, can match the uppercase letters to those lower case, and knows the sounds they make as well. So now we move on to the letters: s, a, t, i, p, n
Those are the letters we used for ABC Go Fish.
For this game, I cut a piece of paper into squares. I wrote one letter on each square of paper, writing two of each letters. So we had 2 ‘s’ squares, 2 ‘a’ squares, etc.
To make this a little bit simpler, and for the opportunity to offer a clue if needed, I chose to write each letter in a different colour. This way, if Carter could not recall what a “p” looked like, I could tell him that it was an orange letter.
The rules are very, very simple – as all preschool card games need to be:
Shuffle the cards and deal 3 cards to your preschooler and 3 to yourself.
Take turns asking, “Do you have a ….” (and select a letter from your hand to ask)
If a pair is found, lay those cards down.
The game is done when all the cards are paired up!
Go Fish Game Ages
I like using only 3 cards at first as it makes it much more manageable for preschoolers. The cards are a bit tricky to hold, so you could open a hardcover book on the floor and lay the cards down on the floor behind the open book.
This card game is so easy to play and loads of fun. It is a wonderful beginner card game for preschoolers and a fabulous way to practise letters.
Think of all of the “Go Fish” versions we could create:
- sight words
- numbers
- addition questions matched with sums
- subtraction questions matched with sums
- compound words (“sand” would match with “wich”)
- capital cities
Go Fish Gameplay
I can see this card game being a weekly feature in our homeschool!
I hope you are having a lovely day – thank you so much for reading. Please come back again soon!
xo
Go Fish Game Target
Sarah