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Most people in their lives have played UNO. It’s a very easy card game
and I often have a pack of card in my bag when I’m babysitting, out places with
the kids or when I know it’s going to be a rainy day. It’s honestly been a
great way to pass the time. UNO is also a great resource that you can use every
day to help your kids learn from a young age.
Don’t believe me?
Well here are five ways that you can use the cards to help your child
learn.
Colours
Uno cards come in four different colours (blue, yellow, green and red)
if you ignore the special cards. This means that you can used those cards to
help with colour identification. There are a number of activities that you can
do.
- Shuffle the cards and have them identify the colour and then place them in separate piles or lines.
- Hold up a card and play eye spy using that colour.
- If you have older children you can randomly draw a card and they have to find the number of coloured items the card has – so if they draw a yellow 5 then they have to find five yellow items and either write then down or draw them.
- You can draw a card and create a scavenger hunt where they have to search around the house for an item of that colour.
Numbers
Like with colours, you can use the numbered cards to help with
counting.
- Get them to line up the cards from 1 to 9
- Draw a card and see how many things they can see that matches that number – so if the draw a three they would look around and see how many things are in threes (so three birds, three lights, etc).
- Have each child have a colour and they have to go on a scavenger hunt, making sure to collect 9 different things and make sure that they have enough of each item to cover each card (so one rock, 6 leaves, 9 gumnuts, etc)
Matching
This is a simple activity that is very easy. With each colour being
numbered, you can go through and match up all the numbers. This can be done by
either letting the kids have free reign or have each person draw a card and then
identifying the number and which other numbers it goes with. By the end you
should have either nine piles would four cards in each or nine rows with four
cards in each.
Memory
Memory is probably one of the easiest to do, especially if you have
more than one kid with you. Each colour has multiples of each card, so divide
the cards up into their colours and each child then gets a colour. From there
they put the cards face down with UNO facing up and play a game of memory. This
allows all the kids to play at their own pace and stops them competing against
each other. You can also just divide the cards up into their colours and have
everyone take a turn to match the numbers or use all the cards and have a giant
game of memory.
UNO
You might be thinking what could playing the actual game teach kids and
that is simple – sharing, turn taking and good sportsmanship. Learning to share
and take turns go hand in hand and playing games like UNO really help kids to
understand sharing the item and waiting for their turn. For younger kids you
can have a special item (like a rock or a teddy bear) that gets passed around
and the person holding it is the person whose turn it is. For older kids,
learning to be a good sport whether they win or loose is something that is very
important later in life as sometimes they’re going to do amazingly and other
times they’re not. Learning to win graciously and accept losses without getting
upset is something that can be taught by playing simply game like UNO and will
stay with them throughout their life.
What was your favourite thing about
playing UNO?
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