Fun and Educational Card Games!
With Christmas season well and truly upon us, check out these free downloadables to use in your classes or at home when you’re snowed in! These materials are all designed to supplement and reinforce what students will encounter when playing AGO Christmas card game. Hope you like them and wishing you a very Merry Christmas!
Free, printable board games are available for download. There are several board layouts available. These are turn based strategy games, where players play cards from their hand, and put game chips onto corresponding squares on the game board grid. If you are familiar with the game “sequence”, you are already halfway there.
Generally, the goal is to form straight lines of four or more chips in a row, and to prevent your opponents from doing likewise.
We tried several different layouts. Any is fine really, but if you want to see which board arrangement you like best, more are available by clicking here.
The AGO Halloween Boardgame is a product that works under similar principles that we had printed professionally. Check out our video on how to play that, here:
This game is easier and simpler than Last Card, but retains much of the excitement, and has the advantage of the game length being predictable. Thus these rules are better for younger / new players, as there are fewer rules and players don’t have to hold cards in their hand. On the other hand, there is no underlying strategy kids can learn – it all comes down to luck! Though most often played with Phonics cards, it can be played with AGO Q&A cards as well.
Setup:
To set up, place a large selection of cards face down on the table, and mix them up.
Play:
Players take turns picking up cards, starting clockwise and follow the card’s instruction (in Q&A this means asking the next player a question, in Phonics, players read the card they turn over). The objective is to score as many points as possible, and cards are worth their point value (i.e. a 7 card is worth 7 points). If a player gets a pick up 3 card, they pick up three more cards (adding all these points to their score); The Jump a Player card causes the next player up to miss their turn, and scores 5 points; the Change the direction card also scores 5 points, and changes the direction of play; a Change color card scores ten points, then the player draws again.
Finish:
Players keep all cards that they draw in their own pile.
At the end, there is a chance to practice simple math and counting as points are tallied.
Alternatively, you can play “most cards wins”, which simplifies the tallying process.
Most points at the end wins.
Welcome to the AGO card games blog!
We intend to use this page to post useful things related to AGO card games here!
AGO cards are designed for language learning and developing reading skills. We started off making games for learning English, but now have games in 5 languages, and over time hope to add many more!
AGO games are pretty easy to use right out of the box, but experienced teachers, parents and students also know that there is a lot more that you can get out of the games with just a few little tips, and by mixing in new things to keep it fresh! We intend to make this blog the best place to find those tips.
And if you have a good idea… or have a question / content request that you think others might also find useful, please let us know, and maybe we can add it here, too!
A common question / request that we often get is for new game ideas, so over the next few weeks we will start posting a bunch of ideas for games and classroom management.
Till then, take care and have fun learning languages and reading!
