The photo illustrations on our vocabulary flashcards make them a sure-fire hit with children but there may come a time when you’re a little bored of using the same old methods to learn vocabulary at home.
To help you to beat vocab boredom, we’ve put together 10 ways for you to shake things up and keep your child on their toes!
Select 1, 2 or 3 flashcards each morning to use as your “Word(s) of the Day”. You can discuss these words in the morning and then challenge the whole family to fit the words into a sentence during the day.
Remember: there are no points for “shoe-horning” words into sentences – they must sound like a natural fit!
Each set of flashcards comes with its own metal ring so you can take your flashcards anywhere. If there’s an empty 10-minute slot in your day, take the flashcards with you so you can fit in a quick bit of vocab discussion.
Many parents encourage their children to think of a sentence using the words on the flashcards. This is a strategy that we highly recommend, but there’s no need to stop there!
Several of the Wordier flashcards feature word collocations – word pairs that are often used together in the English language, e.g. “stiff competition” or “splitting headache”.
Once your child has thought up a couple of regular sentences, encourage them to use the collocations on the cards to form even more stellar sentences.
Seeing the illustrations on the Wordier flashcards has encouraged many young Wordies to make their own. This is brilliant as illustrating a word is a great way of making it stick; it works far better than simply writing a definition.
This was Bea’s illustrated flashcard, which she decided to make all by herself.
The definition isn’t quite right (it should say “spread in the air”) but we corrected that after the picture was taken.
Test your child’s recall of words by reading the definition of the word and asking your child to tell you the matching word. If you have more than one child, allow them to compete to keep the cards they define correctly.
Many of our most dedicated Wordies know the flashcards like the back of their hands, so they’re happy to show off their skills with a round of speed testing.
Here’s a clip of the brilliant Luka doing just that:
Try this yourself by giving your child 30 seconds (or more, if you prefer) and see how many flashcards they can define in this time. Maintain a record of Personal Bests at home so they can try to beat their previous scores.
For added fun, why not try a vocab speed test yourself? I’m sure your child would love to see whether they can beat you!
Where appropriate, the Wordier cards feature synonyms of the words on the front. Unlike many publishers, we’ve only used close synonyms so that your child doesn’t get confused and think that “I snatched the toy from his hands” means the same as “I abducted the toy from his hands”.
Once your child has learnt the main flashcard words and their definitions, they can start learning the synonyms, too. Once covered, you can use the synonyms to create a different kind of speed test.
The flashcards contain images of a wide variety of people and places. Take just one of these or combine them to inspire your child to write a story based on the image on the card.
Use the vocabulary from the flashcards to inspire a game of Hangman. You can use either the definitions or synonyms of the word as clues if needed. As an added bonus, this game helps to practise spelling the words from the flashcards.
The Wordier flashcards and vocabulary book come free with online games and quizzes that your child can use to revise (without your help 👍). Make a quick 5- or 10-minute game a regular part of your day. It’s screen time with a purpose!
To get your set of Wordier Illustrated Vocabulary Flashcards, just press the button below.
