Make Homeschooling Lessons Fun With Flashcards

Are you taking virtual or hybrid classes this semester? Perhaps you’re a parent working hard to homeschool your child during the coronavirus pandemic. 

Whatever the case may be, it’s certainly not easy to master key concepts from a course in general, let alone when you add in the stressors of trying to learn everything from a school based out of your living room or kitchen. 

There are several “hacks” you can incorporate to make homeschooling more convenient and more effective, however. One of these hacks is to use flashcards. 

What are flashcards? They are classic study tools that have been used by students for decades  - and for good reason. If you aren’t using flashcards yet, you’re missing out. Here’s what you need to know.

What Are Flashcards?

The flashcard is the quintessential study tool. Flashcards promote good studying habits and can help encourage your brain to remember material through the process of active recall. This is one of the practices through which your brain learns the most efficiently.

Simply put, a flashcard is just a piece of card (usually an index card, but truly, you could make a flashcard out of anything - including something as simple as a piece of paper) with a hint or cue on one side and the answer on the back. 

The cue can be just about anything, from a simply worded question to a picture or even just a single word that will trigger some kind of pre-planned response. You can study just about anything by using flashcards - including scientific symbols, historic dates, countries, foreign language vocabularies, and much more.

Flashcards offer an easy way for learners to memorize and retain information. All you have to do is learn a piece of information and read the question to recall the answer - then check to see if your answer was correct. It’s as simple as that! 

Many students use flashcards, but very few use them in ways that promote effective long term learning. For example, lots of students design and practice them in a way that uses only rote memorization skills, while others develop complex carbs that don’t force them to truly recall the information - only to recognize it. 

Some students even overuse flashcards, incorporating them into a studying plan when another study technique might be much more effective.

Do They Work?

Flashcards are incredibly effective tools for learners, particularly those who are engaging in a home school or virtual learning setting from your home office desk. They are powerful and effective and can be adapted to fit students of all abilities, ages, and interests. 

The science behind flashcards is simple. Early educators, including the Roman orator and teacher Quintilian, knew that the key to memorizing information was in recalling it. Flashcards help you do this by enhancing the process of active learning, which can reduce the rate at which you forget new information because it strengthens neural memory pathways. 

Using flashcards is much more effective than just passively skimming over or reviewing information because it taps into your brain’s desire to be more efficient. Your mind is constantly developing new memory pathways to help connect new information to information you may have learned long ago. If these pathways are not frequently traveled, or used, they will start to deteriorate. Eventually, you’ll forget the information.

The more you actively recall bits of information with flashcards, the stronger those neural memory paths will be - and the more likely you will be to retain that information even after it is no longer needed or regularly accessed. Engaging in active recall study by using flashcards is one of the best ways to memorize information with ease.

You don’t have to sit down for hours with your stack of flashcards, either, which is a pitfall that many novice learners tend to find themselves in. In fact, shorter, more evenly spaced study sessions with flashcards are far more effective than those that are long and drawn-out. 

That’s great news for the students with short attention spans. All you need is a few five- to ten-minute study sessions every day in order to get the information down pat. That makes the flashcard an invaluable tool for a student in a home school or hybrid learning environment.

Teach Learners How To Learn

One of the biggest benefits of using flashcards is that they teach learners how to learn. Study skills are not innate - in fact, it takes some time to discover the best learning and studying methods that work well for you. Studying is not a talent that many people have a good grasp on, in fact.

Flashcards not only provide learners with a way to memorize information, but they also help students of all ages learn how to measure their own success and assess their progress.

When you use a flashcard, you have to check your own answer right away. The flashcard will be the measurement of how knowledgeable you are about a given subject - rather than a third party person. Therefore, you’ll get a clear, objective idea of where you stand without necessarily being told that you are wrong. 

Flashcards can also protect students who tend to be easily overwhelmed by large quantities of information. Flashcards are meant to be studied one at a time, so it’s more difficult for a student to become overwhelmed. Using flashcards as a study tool is a great way to streamline and simplify the learning process. 

Flashcards can be used by students of any age, but they’re most beneficial starting at around age five to eight. This is when students start to get used to the idea of memorization - after all, it’s around this time that kids start being rewarded for high marks on spelling tests or mathematics tests.

Therefore, using flashcards for basic concepts, starting when a child is at a young age, is incredibly beneficial.

Multi-Sensory Learning Tool

For students with diverse learning needs, flashcards are essential. Many people view flashcards simply as visual learning aids - but that’s not the case. Flashcards can also be used to engage non-visual learners - here’s how. 

If you’re a kinesthetic learner, making your own flashcards is a great way to get an immediate learning boost. When you have to sit down and handwrite new information, that will send messages to your brain that the information is worth remembering. 

Are you an auditory learner? If so, you should read the information on the flashcard out loud. This will help you hear what you are learning rather than just seeing it. You will also benefit because you are shaping the word with your mouth just like you would write them out on paper, giving a double benefit when committing this material to memory.

Flashcards can also appeal to a more creative learner. If you're studying vocabulary, for example, you could come up with a color code for the various parts of speech (like orange for adjectives). If you’re studying facts about historic figures or places, you could draw pictures or come up with catchy, easily-memorized phrases to help commit this information to memory, too.

Organizing Your Flashcards

One of the biggest pitfalls of using flashcards is that they can get messy - and in a hurry. It’s easy to misplace or lose your flashcards, particularly if you are a young kid or simply a bit disorganized when it comes to your study materials!

An easy way to organize your flashcards is to put them in a rubber-banded set. That way, they are gathered together so you can use them at a moment’s notice. You can also put them on pre-made flashcard organizer rings, which can be purchased for just a few dollars at most department or office stores.

Feel free to get creative, though, too! You can stash your flashcard sets in a pencil bag or box or put them in small photo albums. You can stash them in sandwich bags or snack bags or even stash them in travel containers meant to hold soap. Some people with lots of flashcards put them in hanging shoe racks. 

Whatever the case may be, try to come up with a good system for organizing your flashcards so that you don’t find yourself stressed out and overwhelmed whenever you try to locate them.

Make Learning Fun

Studying does not have to be boring - especially when you’re using flashcards. There are several games you can play to help take the edge off a long day of homework and virtual learning during the pandemic. 

For starters, why not play a game of stoplight solitaire? This game is best played when you’re on a car ride with nothing else to do. Have the child race to flip through a flashcard set while sitting at a red light - the set must be finished by the time the light turns green! If you can’t beat the light, it’s time to brush up on those concepts - you need more work.

Another fun game is to hold a flashcard bee. Just like your standard, run-of-the-mill spelling bee, a flashcard bee involves answering a certain set of flashcards correctly to avoid getting “out.” This game is perfect for groups of two or more students, as it will promote some friendly competition, but if it’s just you, don’t worry! You can always give the player extra lives so that he doesn’t get out too fast.

Different Ways To Use Flash Cards

The best way you can use flashcards is to make your own. Many people share their flashcard decks with others, and there are even software programs, apps, and other paid services out there that will let you download decks that have already been made so you can start studying instantly.

Although this can sometimes be useful, it will be more beneficial for you to make your own flashcards. Making flashcards will require you to write down the information, which will make it necessary for you to take in new information, wrangle it with your brain, and create something new with it - all activities that are vital for learning. 

When you are able to do this, you’ll create strong neural pathways so that you can teach yourself the new information in several different ways. If you use pre-made flashcards, sure, you might save some time - but you’re skipping out on part of the process. 

When you make your flashcards, consider combining both words and pictures, particularly if you are a visual learner. You can also use mnemonic devices to help forge strong mental connections. 

What is a mnemonic device, you might ask? It’s simply anything that will help you create an association between two separate pieces of information in your brain. An example is ROY G. BIV, the acronym that is used to help you remember the order of colors in the light spectrum. 

When you make your flashcards, resist the urge to write multiple questions on one card. Whether your goal is to save space or to cram as much information as possible about a topic in a given space, this kind of flashcard creation simply is not effective. 

What will happen here is that your brain will confuse recall or recognition. You’ll recognize all of the information on the card, but you won’t recall it - at least, not with the associations that are necessary to fully commit the information to memory.

Instead, if you’re trying to memorize a complex concept, break it into multiple questions. This might be challenging to do at first, when you’re coming up with the cards, but it will lead to a much more effective flashcard that will be more useful in your long term study plan.

Incorporate Flashcards To Your Child’s Daily Homeschooling Routine To Make Learning Fun

Using flashcards is a great way to learn from anywhere. Whether you’re studying in a car, from a home school setting, or even in a traditional classroom environment, flashcards make it easy to engage in beneficial, long-lasting, and multi-sensory learning. There are all kinds of ways you can incorporate flashcards in your study sessions - many websites now even offer virtual flashcards that you can flip through on your phone!

The options are endless. No matter what the case might be, flashcards are helpful tools that will help you take your teaching and learning to the next level.

Jessica Lauren is Founder, contributing Author and Owner of Citrus Sleep. Citrus Sleep is an online publication that highlights brands, sleep products, women’s fashion, subscription services and ideas creating positive social change and promoting a healthy lifestyle. After spending nearly a decade working in PR and marketing for several brands and startups, Jessica knows what truly drives conversions, sold-out launches and guest posts.

Follow Jessica at @jessicalaurencs | Jessica Lauren

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