School teachers are often looking for fun and educational activities to use when teaching their students. File folder games are wonderful for teaching different developmental skills and they don’t require a lot of space for storage.
File folder games can be purchased through a number of web sites for relatively inexpensive prices. You can also create your own file folder games for roughly $5.00. Here are some easy file folder games you can create:
The Supermarket
The design of the Supermarket file folder game is to teach children how to count. You will need a plain or colored manila file folder, red and green and white construction paper, glue, and markers. With the white construction paper, cut out 6 shopping carts and number them 1-6 and glue them to the file folder. Then, create apples, tomatoes, cucumbers and other foods with the red and green paper. Write the name and goal of the game at the top of the folder. The goal of the Supermarket game is to have each child correctly count out the number of apples, tomatoes or cucumbers that belong in each cart. For example, cart one should have one tomato; cart five should have five tomatoes, etc. If you are playing this game with older children, use Velcro instead of glue so you can mix up the carts to make the game a bit more challenging.
Name that Animal
Another fun file folder game is to get pictures of six to eight different animals and play the “name that animal” game. Using a manila folder, you will Velcro different animals onto the folder. Underneath each animal, leave a blank space where the children can match the name of the animal to the proper animal. The space can be written in with erasable marker, or you can use Velcro to attach the names under each animal. This is a great game for younger children who are just learning new skills.
The Color Wheel
The color wheel is a fun way to teach younger children about color. Using a plain manila folder, you will poke a hole directly in the middle. You will need several colors of construction paper. Cut each piece of construction paper into equal sizes of a pie. Use a black piece of construction paper and glue all of the other pieces on top of it in a circle, fitting together like a pie. Poke a hole in the center of the color wheel. Using a wheel spinning tac, you will attach the color wheel to the manila folder. You can create two wheels that will go on opposite sides of the manila folder, one can be the primary colors and the other can be the secondary colors. Once the wheel is in tact, write the names of the colors above them, and this will be the starting position, have the children spin the wheel to properly align the correct color with the correct name. To make it a bit more challenging, make the names of the colors rotate as well. The children will need to spin the color wheel and the color name wheel in order to match the proper color to the correct name.
If you do not want to create your own file folder games, you can find several online from different web sites. Most file folder games come with all the game board pieces, labels, and easy-to-read instructions. There are file folder games for younger and older kids. Some popular file folder games include:
•The Shapes Game
•Number counting
•The Color Game
•The Alphabet Game
File folders are a great way to help children learn cognitive thinking and reasoning skills.
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