# Flash Card Building in the Sandbox
> Take a pack of flash cards out to a dry sandbox and stand them in the sand to build walls, houses, shapes, race lanes and tents for toy animals. Kids get open-ended imaginative play with a side of word reading, shapes and animal sorting.
- URL: https://www.funlittles.com/flash-cards-in-a-sand-box/
- Ages: 2–6 yrs · Difficulty: easy · Mess: medium
- Time: prep 5 min, activity 30 min
- Works for: one-on-one, small group, whole class
- Skills: vocabulary, storytelling, creative-thinking, shapes, animal-classification, spatial-reasoning, early-reading
- Cautions: ingestion-risk

## Materials (one batch)
- 1 pack Flash cards (any kind: words, letters, pictures)
- 1 piece Sandbox or sand bin with dry sand
- Toy animals
- Small toys or figures (dinosaurs, toy cars, etc.) (optional) (household)

## Substitutions
- Instead of sandbox: Indoor floor or table (Daddy B built card houses indoors, but the author found cards stand up much more easily in sand.)

## Safety
- Supervise sand play at all times. Keep sand away from eyes and mouths, especially with toddlers.
- Small toy animals and figures can be a choking hazard for children under 3.

## Steps
1. Take a pack of flash cards out to a sandbox with dry sand.
2. Push the cards upright into the sand, edge to edge, to build a wall.
3. Put toy animals inside the wall to keep them safe and make up stories about them.
4. Line the cards up in straight rows to make race lanes for the animals.
5. Sort the animals into plant eaters and meat eaters for a prey-and-predator hunting game.
6. Bend and stand cards to make basic shapes like triangles and squares.
7. Build houses by copying a drawn house with standing cards.
8. Lean two cards together to make tents for tiny toy friends.
9. Try to read the words on the cards as you build.

## Tips
- Cards are so much easier to stack and stand in a sandbox than on the floor.
- Clean-up was easy since we had dry sand. Very rare, because we apparently always have a lake in our sand box!
- Territory issues did crop up between the girls, but they eventually sorted themselves out.
- While the older one built walls for her animals, the baby happily buried her cards in the sand. Both count as play.
- Big A started reading the words on the cards while she built. At one point she went looking for the lion card to put next to her lion.

## The original post by TurkeyMom (2012)

Long time ago, when I didn’t know better, I bought a ton of flash cards thinking I can teach my kids using those. Well, you can guess how that went, right? Usually ends up with our favorite game, "It’s raining It’s pouring flash cards!” How do we play with flash cards? While holding that thought, I set out the box. During the day, Daddy B started building card houses with the flash cards. Big A was enthralled and she actually controlled her desire to smash them. Baby A – not much control there. Boom! The house bit the dust. Big A was excited with building houses with cards. But she was more excited to stack them in her sandbox as it was more easier to make them stand on sand box than on the floor. Out we went with a pack of flash cards to our trusty sandbox. Big A started building a wall to protect all her animals, while baby A was burying her cards in the sand. Territory issues did crop up between the girls which eventually sorted itself.



Lot of imaginative play with many story lines happened for a while. Great for vocabulary and creative thinking. When the steam wore off, Big A took down her cards and started stacking them in vertical lines and said the animals are having a race. By the time she was done arranging all her animals, I guess she lost track of what she had initially thought because it turned out to be a Prey and Predator hunting game. Hermivores (herbivores) and carnivores were lined up. That I thought was a great exercise for her- separating the plant eaters and the meat eaters.



Out of practice I started building shapes with the cards and tried to get Baby A into it. We did work on a few basic shapes with the cards.



Big Sister showed her architectural skills and created some cool houses.



After a short break spent on another toy activity, they came here and build some tents for their tiny friends.   You know what the irony is, Big A was trying to read the words on the flash cards while she was building/playing with them. At one point, she was actually looking for a lion flash card to put her animal next to it. That gave me an idea for next time. Build a zoo and match the words on the flash cards (pictureless side of course) to the respective animal. Easy clean up, since we had dry sand – very rare because we apparently always have a lake in our sand box. **[**For more sandbox play ideas, look at this post**.](https://www.funlittles.com/build-an-island-in-a-sandbox/)**

- Vocabulary via story telling.
- Good dose of creativity.
- Understanding of basic shapes (for the baby).
- Animal categories - understanding of the prey and predators.
- Translating a 2 dimensional drawing of a house to 3-dimensional one using cards.

**Thanks for reading**

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