Many of us have been staying at home for a while now, and kids are getting antsy with the limited resources. There are some common household items that you can creatively use to entertain children – like a deck of playing cards! Even so, you can lighten the mood and introduce more variety into the daily routine with English Language Arts, otherwise known as ELA activities. While common in classrooms, this type of activity can also be done at home. As a matter of fact, there are some common household items you can creatively use to entertain children —– like a deck of playing cards!
Below are two fun, easy ELA activities you can do with elementary-age kids to keep them entertained and learning for free! For both of these ELA activities, you are going to need a standard deck of playing cards in good condition. If you don’t already have playing cards, you can find usually find them at local shops or online stores that offer games.
Playing Cards Activity 1: Write a Silly Story
Easy ELA activities often give children a chance to tap into their creative imaginations and this first card activity involves storytelling. For this activity, you need cards, a piece of paper big enough to write and draw on or a dry erase board.
Split your cards into the following three piles: Ace-4, 5-9, 10-King. Mix up the cards in each pile and place them face down on a flat surface. These card sets will each represent different parts of your silly story.
On a piece of paper or a dry erase board, write down the words, “Character,” “Setting,” and “Action,” and place your card piles down next to each word.
Your “character” pile will have cards Ace-4, your “setting” pile will have cards five through nine, and your “action” pile will have cards 10-King, as shown below. Each story category pile has an assigned “value” that equals a specific piece of the story. For example, the character pile includes the type of characters who appear in the stories. The settings pile includes places where the action happens, and the action pile includes actions a character does in the story. Creating this part of the activity can be a lot of fun!
Then, flip the top card in each pile, as shown below.
The next step is to look at the list below to figure out, based on the playing cards, what your character, setting, and action will be in your silly story. Using the cards that I flipped over, my silly story would be about a pirate that went to a parade and found a pet tiger.
Note: You can use the list below, or you can have fun creating your own list with your children or students.
Characters
- Ace – Baker
- 1 – Mermaid
- 2 – Pirate
- 3 – Mailman
- 4 – Clown
Setting
- 5 – playground
- 6 – woods
- 7 – doctor’s office
- 8 – parade
- 9 – beach
Action
- 10 – screamed at the top of his lungs
- Jack – danced for hours
- Queen – found a pet tiger
- King – ran as fast as she could
This activity creates many teaching opportunities for you, such as writing a beginning, middle and end, using transition words, discussing story elements, problem/solution, and so much more! The most important part of this activity is to have fun and to celebrate each child’s writing!
Playing Cards Activity 2: Create a Code
This is another ELA activity that will keep your children or students busy for a long time. This activity is called Create a Code. To do this activity, the first thing you will need to do is to write down what you see below on a piece of paper, or you can simply print this picture out. Be sure to use the colors black and red to coordinate with the playing card colors.
Next, your child will create a code to make a word or a phrase. For example, to create the word “cat” your child would place the cards 3 (black), 5 (red), and Ace (red) down, as seen in the first image below. As your child gets more comfortable, he or she can create messages, as shown in the second image below. This time the code is “school is fun.” If you have more than one deck of playing cards, the messages can get even longer!
If you have more than one child at home, you can have them create codes for each other, or you can do this with them.
As always, our Really Good Stuff® team is here to help. We’ve got hundreds of free resources to help teachers, parents, and children navigate this unprecedented time. You can also search our blog for more free tips and ideas from real teachers.
By Nicole Morelli
4/24/2020
Nicole Morelli formerly taught first, second, and third grade. Before teaching, she was a paraprofessional, where she assisted in multiple elementary grades and a special needs class. Nicole has worked at Really Good Stuff for a little over two years as a Product Developer and Content Manager. Her specialties are STEM education and social-emotional learning. She has a lot of fun developing products for those topics!