A fun way for children to drill nearly any skill without fear of mistakes. By getting instant feed-back of the correct response children can learn on their own. (See picture at the bottom of the page that illustrates this.)
NOTE: You will notice that all three of the examples on this page were simply workbook pages JUST WAITING to be made into games instead. Think of the practice/drill gotten from these pages that would have been used ONCE and discarded. Now that they are games, children can do them over and over and they will not complain.
Golf Tee Cards are easy to create. First choose the skill that needs drill. For example, lets use learning to tell time. Find pictures of clocks in a math workbook, cut them out and put one on each index card. Below the picture, write three times (one being the correct time pictured). Below or next to each time punch a hole in the card using a hole punch. On the back of the card, circle the hole next to the correct time in red. Then, cover the cards with clear Contact paper to make them more durable. After trimming the excess Contact paper, the holes will also need to be re-punched.
To Play:
Give the child a colorful plastic Golf Tee (or a pencil may be used). The child looks at the clock, decides which time is the correct one and inserts the Golf Tee into the hole. Holding the Golf Tee in the hole, he looks at the backside of the card to see if he has selected the correct answer. If not, he instantly can see what the correct response is.
Golf Tee Cards are suitable for most ages, as long as they can safely handle the object to insert. (Using an exacto knife a larger hole could be cut for a younger child to insert his finger through, making the game safe for little children too).
The possibilities of skills that could be drilled in this manner is endless....I will list a few ideas here to get you thinking...
PHONICS:
Put a picture on the card with three choices of the beginning letter sound (or the short vowel in the middle of the word).
READING:
Have an item pictured with three words for the child to choose the one that goes with the picture.
SPELLING:
Write a word in three forms (two with spelling errors). The child must chose the correctly spelled version.
Write three different words...Player tries to find the one that is misspelled. To make this more difficult, offer a fourth choice "all correct."
HISTORY:
List an event and three dates to choose from.
Name an event with three choices of who was President at the time.
GRAMMAR:
Write a sentence....child chooses smile face if punctuated correctly,
frown, if not.
Write a sentence..child chooses smile if capitalized correctly, frown if not.
MATH:
Counting.
Write a math problem with three possible answers.
Write a story problem with choice of answers.
Show a picture of a fraction. Choose which fraction is pictured.
Write a fraction, choose which answer is the fraction in its lowest terms.
Show picture of group of coins...choose the correct amount.
GEOGRAPHY:
Name a state, give a choice of three cities, choose which is the capital.
Name a mountain, river, or other item...select which country it is located in.
SCIENCE:
List an invention, choose the inventor.
Show a bird, choose its correct name. (or insect, flower, animal....)
PRE-SCHOOL IDEAS:
Put a color dot, select the toy that is the same color.
Put a picture of an animal...count its legs and find the number.
Put a group of items to be counted and the number to find.
Show a sequence of shapes, find the item that would come next in the sequence.
As I have said, this list would be endless......Have fun....
NOTE: To make these games SELF-CORRECTING, simple mark the correct answer on the back side of the card. Then the child simply looks at the reverse side while holding the golf tee in the hole by the answer he has selected. HE GET INSTANT FEED-BACK OF THE CORRECT ANSWER and NO RED MARKS declaring his mistakes to the world.
