A Bakers Dozen of UNO Learning Fun Ideas

UNO is a favourite card game in our house. It's one that was a favoutire of mine as a child and continues to be a favourite for our kids as well. We play UNO almost daily.

UNO cards can be used for many other learning games. Here are some ways that we use our UNO cards.

*NOTE: I have NOT been compensated for this post in anyway. I am just sharing my love of this versatile card game in hopes to inspire you to extend your learning opportunities. I am expressing my  opinions only of our love for this game.

1) Play UNO by following the directions in the game.

2) Use the cards to sort by colours.

3) Sort the cards by symbol. This can be done with just numbers for number recognition but it can also be done with the shape cards.

4) Practice lining up ascending and descending numerals. I did them here in smaller lines for the pictures but ideally you would line them straight across for all 10 cards.

5) The cards are wonderfully for practising patterning using critical thinking skills about what comes next.

6) Use the cards with small objects to practice counting by placing the correct amount of items under each numeral.

7) You could also turn the above idea into a scavenger hunt and send your children off to find the correct number of corresponding small toys. For example: Go find 5 blocks, or 8 lego people and they bring them back and set up beside the correct numeral card. This not only practices math skills, but listening and critical thinking skills as well while they follow directions and search for correct number of requested toys.

8) Older children can practice math and use the cards as equations to solve. Solve the answers by placing the correct cards as the answer. Use a pencil as the equals line or write ='s on a sqaure of paper at the same time you make the +, -, X or even division signs.

9) Even older children can also practice double digit math and use the cards to carry your numbers.

10) If you remove all the symbol cards from the deck you can lay them out to play memory and find two cards that are the same number, or same colour depending on your children's age.

11) Play Make 10. Line up your cards in a grid. We did rows of 5X5. Turn two cards over. If they both add to Ten you keep them and try again. If not turn them over and the next person takes their turn. This idea we got from HERE (links to all of their posts tagged UNO with directions too and more for older children).

For younger children you can leave the cards turned up as we do when Aayla plays so she can count each card as it's turned to see if it adds to Ten with another card already up.

12) Building houses with the cards is always fun too. We build ours without glue so we can build them over and over again (and still use the cards) but this can be frustrating for younger children.

 Sierra finally accomplishes a large card house and she is so proud of her accomplishments.

13) If you had an old deck of cards you could hot glue the pieces together and make it into a doll house for small toys. Our deck is old and well worn but we aren't prepared to say good buy to it yet.

Aayla received a new deck for Christmas that is a Monster High version.

But we still love our old well worn deck the best :)

Has your family played UNO? Do you have another way to play and learn with UNO cards? Feel free to share your ideas in comments.