I spotted this game online and found it a delight in so many ways. It works fine motor skills for toddlers (taking flashcards in and out of envelopes), requires no fancy materials, keeps your tot busy for ages, and doubles as a lesson on word recognition. If you don’t have a set of flashcards, consider investing in some. You can play this game now, and use them with a beginning reader far down the road.

To play, I simply put about 10 flashcards into empty business envelopes. If your toddler is closer to 2 years old, consider sealing them shut. For Veronika, I left them easy to open.

She started out sitting on my lap, as I showed her how to lift the envelope flap and remove the card inside.

Soon she was concentrating hard on fitting the cards back in again.

Once she had mastered the mechanics of this, she started to pay more attention to the pictures on the cards. I had deliberately used some that are her early words, and she happily said or signed them to me.

Hat! Duck! Cat!

Once she got tired of that, there was simply a big heap of fun envelopes and cards to play with for a while, making this activity great for self-entertainment.