Follow our easy step-by-step guide to creating a personalized memory game.
By Heather Camlot
Call it what you will — Concentration, Matching Game, Memory – the game that involves finding two cards alike is, and always will be, a hit. The reasons are simple: kids like matching games because they’re fun and challenging; parents like matching games because they’re educational and engaging.
With WorkLivePlayCafe’s customized matching game, you can also add “personal” to the list of attributes. We created a template of 24 playing cards and filled the first few with our summer photos – hitting the beach, playing soccer, visiting the zoo and going camping. Follow our simple instructions to add your own photos, be they of your summer fun, family members or favourite toys.
Supplies:
- Three sheets of cardstock
- Wrapping or art paper or printed clip art design (optional)
- Glue stick
- Scissors or utility knife
- Adhesive vinyl (optional)
Instructions:
1) In your photo-editing program, select 12 images you’d like to use and size them to 3.5 inches high by 2.5 inches wide. Save them to an easy-to-find folder, such as “memory game images.” If you don’t have any or enough photos, you can add clip art images, free photos or even colour (in which case you can go directly to the next step).
2) Open our matching game in Word.
3) To add your own image, click on the box (whether there’s an image or not), then select Drawing Tools>Format>Shape Fill>Picture Fill and select one of your saved, resized photos.
4) If you want the playing card to be a colour rather than an image, select Drawing Tools>Format>Shape Fill> and pick a colour.
5) Remember to repeat the picture or colour twice so you have a match. Continue until all 24 of the boxes are full.
6) Test-print your card game on regular paper to make sure everything looks good. If so, feed your cardstock into the printer and print at high or best.
7) If desired, size a sheet of wrapping or art paper or printed clip art on the white sides of your cardstock, then glue.
8) When the glue has dried, cut out your cards with scissors or a utility knife and ruler.
9) To keep the game in top shape, laminate the cards on both sides with adhesive vinyl, cutting the clear sheets a few millimetres from the edges.
Rules of the Game:
Now that you have the cards, it would be a good idea to know how to play! Mix up the cards and lay them in a grid face down on a flat surface. The first player turns over two cards. If they match, the player takes the pair and goes again. If they do not match, the next player goes. The player with the most pairs wins. Tip: for younger kids, you may want to skip the same player going again.
Have fun!
First published July 14, 2011, on WorkLivePlayCafe.com.
Heather Camlot 