Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Playing Cards with little hands - help to hold ...

Hi All,

Mr W(4y0m) wanted to learn how to play cards.

Last week we taught him Fish and Crazy Eights. He loves it and wins quite a bit. ( He likes to wear his pirate eye patch while playing.)

His problem is he cannot hold all the cards hidden with his small hands and after a few hands he is tired and has to lay the cards out on the table.

We are looking for something to hold his cards for him so that they stay hidden.

Any suggestions?

A potato chip bag clip! We have some that are like 5" long and easy to squeeze open. I think one of them would be perfect for this.

Staple two round plastic container lids together and slip the cards between them.

Suggestions (we are huge into card games here!): Spot It, Rummikub (the card version), Pictureka, Ruckus, Rat a Tat Cat. My almost-4 loves all of these. Oh, Uno, of course.

When my DD was 3 we played those kind of card games. Once I was done dealing, I'd fan them out facing away from me in a tight pattern, so all the numbers were visible but the bottom right corners all overlapped. I also learned to focus away from her cards when she would inevitably expose them.

That worked for her, but if she was still having an issue, I'd probably give her something like a board game box and let her lay them all in there. She could lay her cards down flat against one part and have the other part vertical to screen them from view.

I think a chip clip would probably damage the cards. It'd have to be one with soft pads at opposite sides of the compression point, and most of them have hard, serrated teeth.

Dude - ours has soft rubber, no teeth! I don't think I've seen ones like that.

DS(4) loves UNO and to start with we would lay all our cards down (to be fair) which was great for helping teach strategy but now he lines them up in a gap in our wooden floor boards which stands them up
He also loves other games like snap, dominoes, snakes and ladders, guess who and jenga. I think it is great for learning fair play, being a gracious non-winner... Mind you in UNO he often wins, no need to help him

We did the game board box method for a while, and then my dad took a piece of scrap wood and carved two card-holding grooves in it. It's easier to sort your hand and group certain types of cards together.

DD likes variant games that involve a big fistful of cards.

Take a piece of wood and cut a slit in it. The cards stand easily in it and it balences on the table so that he doesn't have to use his hands at all.

smart idea

We play cards on the floor and our four year old has a 'card shield' made out of some heavy cardboard from some packaging. We bent it so it doesn't fall over unless somebody gets excited and knocks it over. The cards are lined up on the floor behind it.