Slap Jack and learning your numbers in French

As I was saying yesterday it's important for your children to practice their numbers in a variety of contexts and out-of-order, so that they will know them inside and out. Lot's of kids can count to 10 in another language, but it's imporant to be able to say 6 without having to count up to 6.

Today my daughter asked me to play Slack Jack for the 50th time this week. I love playing cards, but I thought it was time I made it a bit more educational. I told her that from now on if we play it she has to say all of the number cards that she flips over in French. It was a complete success and we had a great time.

For those of you who don't know how to play slap jack, this is how it is played. You can play with as many people as you want, but if you play it the French game you may want to stick to 2 players. Deal out all cards evenly to everyone who is playing. Then, all together you flip a card over. (This is where I had my daughter say the number in French.) If there is a Jack, then the first person who slaps it wins all of the cards that are turned over. I felt like there weren't enough Jacks in our deck, so we made Jokers to be like Jacks and we could slap those too.