Card Suit Race

(not rated)

Practice counting from 1-10 in a whole new way! All you need is a deck of cards, a game board print out, and place markers. Race to the finish line as you take turns drawing cards and moving your marker along the track. Your child will love counting out spaces as he competes for first place! Need a challenge? Check out the variations and transform this game into a way to practice addition and subtraction.

Skills:

Counting and color/symbol recognition
Addition and/or subtraction (variations only)

What You Need:

One deck of cards (Print a deck.)
One Card Suit Race game board (Print this out.)
One place marker for each player (a coin, a bean, or other small object)

What You Do:

Players/teams each select a suit and place their markers on the game board at their suit's starting position.
Shuffle the deck of cards and place it face down in a draw pile.
Player 1 draws a card and places it face up in a discard pile. If the card's suit matches Player 1's suit, Player 1 gets to move their place marker the number of spaces shown on the card. (Aces count 1, and face cards count 10.) If the suit does not match, play moves on to the next person.
Take turns flipping cards and moving place markers. The first player to reach the finish line wins! (If the deck runs out before this happens, reshuffle the cards and continue to play.)

Variations:

Make a longer track by taping multiple copies of the game board together.
Create your own deck of cards using index cards and markers. Use numbers you'd like to work with (e.g. 1-5).
Practice addition by drawing two cards at a time and finding their sum. (You can change the rules so that players don't have to match their suit or they just have to match one card.) You'll want a longer game board for this version.
Practice subtraction by drawing two cards at a time and finding their difference.
Change the rules entirely, so that a place marker is moved forward on a spade, heart, or diamond, but backward on a club. Return to start if the card is a joker.