For any theme unit you choose, a File Folder Game can be a great tool to correspond with what you're trying to teach. Whether it be a theme about bugs, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Spring, health or any number of other ideas, these games will give your child a new way to learn different skills.
Materials:
- Filing folder
- Glue or tape
- Marker
- Stapler
- Envelope or baggy
- Turkey or themed cutouts or print from your PC
- Construction paper
- Contact paper or laminating machine (found in some teacher stores)
Choose the Theme
With Thanksgiving arriving in November, the theme used for example will be turkeys. Remember you can use whatever theme or idea you have to compliment the unit you're teaching. Some other idea's for November are: Indians, Pilgrims, pilgrim hats, feathers and acorns.
Subject-Specific Skills
You can relate almost any skill into a File Folder Game. Below are discrimination and seriation examples. For learning math or reading skills, please go to the Math and Reading File Folder Game article.
Teach Discrimination Skills
Helping your preschooler master his or her discrimination skills can be a fun and creative process. Using 3-10 (depending on your child's skill level) faceless turkey cut-outs from a pattern or printed from your PC, design different faces for each turkey. Make matching copies of each turkey created. Glue one set on the inside of the file folder using both sides. Decorate and label the cover of the file folder so your child recognizes which game it is and laminate. Laminate the matching pieces, staple a baggy or an envelope to the back of the folder, and your game is ready to play!
Have your child match the faces using his discrimination skills. You can make it more challenging by adding patterns (stripes, criss-cross, checkered, polka-dots) or even use this game to learn double-skills by using letters or numbers (teaching both discrimination and reading or math). As your child's skill level grows, so should the level of the games you create for her.
Teach Seriation Skills
Learning the difference between big and small or short and tall is easy using a File Folder Game. Using a turkey cut-out, or any other theme chosen, print or create 3-6 (depending on your child's skill level) different sized cut-outs. Decorate the inside of the file folder as a setting that goes with your theme. For turkey's, you can use construction paper to make green grass, a yellow sun, and white clouds. Be as creative as you want, and remember, decorating it makes it fun for your child. Label and decorate the front of the folder, and laminate. Laminate the cut-outs, staple a baggy or an envelope to the back of the folder, and you're ready to introduce one way of learning seriation to your child.
Explain to your child what he must do: place the cut-outs in order from smallest to biggest, shortest to tallest, or vice versa.
As your preschooler gets older you can add written instructions to the back of the file folder to encourage reading skills and to teach him responsibility in reading instructions on his own. Remember, almost any skill a preschooler needs to learn can be enhanced by using these simple and inexpensive file folder games. Not only are they easy to create, but your child learns through playing a Game!
 |
 |
