The resource that will stay with your child from toddlerhood to childhood – 3 part cards. They look very simple and they are! But they are a powerful tool in your home education arsenal. Saying that, you don’t have to home educate to use them of course! Also known as nomenclature cards, this Montessori staple will stay with your child from around 2 years until at least 11 years old.
I love these! I’m always trying to find way to bring Montessori to everyone, and whilst some of the materials are expensive, these are cheap to make yourselves at home, there are many options online, free or paid (scroll down to find out how to get a free copy of my big cats 3 part cards).
So, What are they?
They are made of 3 parts, surprisingly. One control card which consists of a picture (photo or life like illustration) with a label at the bottom. There is also a card with just the picture and a card with just a label. Each set consists of a group of like things – big cats, fruits, farm machinery etc etc. You can make these for anything your child is interested in!
Making them can be a bit fiddly, but if you’re anything like me, any excuse to use a laminator! You don’t HAVE to cut them out before laminating, but it will help them to last longer and is worth the extra little bit of time you put into them. So, I do: cut, laminate, cut, PLAY!
If you would like the set pictured above as a place to start, keep reading to the bottom where the link is.
3 Part cards are a great tool for:
1:1 correspondence, learning vocabulary, learning to read (especially for those children where phonics just doesn’t work), turn taking games, extending knowledge, researching and report writing. There really is so much you can do with this one resource.
Ways to Play
Beginner:
1. Matching pictures and words to control cards
2. Use a 3 period lesson
3. Pointing out initial sounds to match words
4. Play a game of pairs with control card and picture card
5. Match real objects to the pictures – could be a model of the picture. Here’s more about concrete and abstract
6. Play I spy to extend initial sounds knowledge
7. Stereognostic sense game (stereognostic is where you hide some objects in a bag and let the child feel them and see if they can work it out. Then match them to the picture/ control cards).
Intermediate:
8. Use letters to spell the words yourself (even better if you have the Large Movable Alphabet but a printable version would work too).
9. Use word cards to label real objects. If they aren’t reading yet, they should have some knowdledge of the cards before trying this exercise. Once they know what the pictures are of, encourage them to use initial sounds to help them gain confidence in reading the word and recognising the pattern of the letters, and the shape of the word.
10. Use the cards to play a memory game – like Grandmother’s Shopping Bag or Kim’s Game
11. Play pairs with pictures and word cards (no control) here the control of error would be that when they get to the last one, if it doesn’t match then they know they’ve made a mistake somewhere.
12. Scavenger hunt – children turn over a word card and they have to go and find that picture hidden around the room, or vice versa
13. Sort and classify eg. sort animals by continent
Advanced
14. Use the cards to make up a story, orally and then written
15. Give the children the pictures and words and see if they can research what they are (this is good as a first activity for older children)
16. Present what they know about the pictures. They could use the pictures in their presentation.
17. Can they write the description for the back of the cards, or on a new card (a secret 4th part to 3 part cards!)
18. Make own set of cards based on an interest or for a younger sibling
19. Mix up two sets – can they sort them back again? What categories did they choose?
20. Mix sets and play go fish/ happy families/ bingo
21. Head band game
22. 20 questions – this would require lots of knowledge around the set of pictures, so research beforehand!
23. Dicey spellings – this is a lot of fun. For every number of the dice, the child has to write the spelling in a funny or strange way. E.g. 1 = write the word backwards 2 = write the word using the wrong hand. and so on…
24. Data analysis – e.g. sort by which cards start by different letters and work out the ratio, percentages, fractions. You can choose the criteria for sorting.
25. Make a Venn diagram – how many different ways could you sort them?
26. Would be a great way to learn a new language – they know what the word is in their first language – present the cards in a new language.
Ready to get playing? Here is the Big Cats set to download. I would LOVE to see them in action so remember to tag me in social media when you’re showing off your new game to friends and family 😉
