Get ready for the very best of the best preschool card games! When my little ones get to be about 3 or so, they get to start joining in on some of the board game and card game fun that happens around here (oh yes, it’s a wild home we have friends!)

I really do love card games for preschoolers. They can be SO full of learning. Preschoolers can learn about taking turns, playing fair, being a good sport, and honesty. They can also learn some numeracy and literacy skills – all through the power of play.

Play the popular and exciting card game classic, Go Fish! A card game for kids and grown-ups of all ages! The object of this single-player Go Fish card game is to form the most pairs of cards. Play against a gang of hilarious computer-controlled opponents. Compare your point totals with other card players around the world in the worldwide Go Fish leaderboard! The game features: - Single Game. Go Fish, or sometimes just call Fish, is a card game usually played by two to six players in about 5 to 15 minutes. The rules are simple and any standard deck of cards will do. It’ll take just a few minutes to learn how to play. Nov 17, 2020 Go Fish is a fun card game for 2 to 6 players. To start a game, shuffle the cards and then deal a hand face-down to each player. If there are 2 to 3 players, each player gets 7 cards, but if there are 4-6 players, everyone gets 5 cards. Lay the rest of the cards facedown in the middle of the table.

I wrote a post a little while ago about a great card game to play with preschoolers that works on loads of math skills. You can find that post right here: Teaching Math to Preschoolers with Playing Cards!

Today I wanted to share with you a card game that will have your little three year old (or four year or any age for that matter) learning their letters and sounds by playing ABC Go Fish!

I have shared with you before the order I recommend for teaching children their letters. We play this game using those groupings of letters.

So, the first grouping of letters we teach is our child’s name letters. If we were working on that first group of letters, the name letters are the one’s we would play ABC Go Fish with.

The second group of letters are: s, a, t, i, p, and n. If we were working on the second group of letters, those are the letters we would play with.

You can grab your very own FREE printable pack all about the groupings of letters, why we teach them this way, and awesome activities to practice letters and sounds right here:

My nephew Carter now knows all of his name letters (woohoo!) He knows the lowercase letters, can match the uppercase letters to those lower case, and knows the sounds they make as well. So now we move on to the letters: s, a, t, i, p, n

Go Fish Card Games Online

Those are the letters we used for ABC Go Fish.

For this game, I cut a piece of paper into squares. I wrote one letter on each square of paper, writing two of each letters. So we had 2 ‘s’ squares, 2 ‘a’ squares, etc.

To make this a little bit simpler, and for the opportunity to offer a clue if needed, I chose to write each letter in a different colour. This way, if Carter could not recall what a “p” looked like, I could tell him that it was an orange letter.

The rules are very, very simple – as all preschool card games need to be:

Shuffle the cards and deal 3 cards to your preschooler and 3 to yourself.

Take turns asking, “Do you have a ….” (and select a letter from your hand to ask)

How To Play Go Fish

If a pair is found, lay those cards down.

The game is done when all the cards are paired up!

I like using only 3 cards at first as it makes it much more manageable for preschoolers. The cards are a bit tricky to hold, so you could open a hardcover book on the floor and lay the cards down on the floor behind the open book.

This card game is so easy to play and loads of fun. It is a wonderful beginner card game for preschoolers and a fabulous way to practise letters.

Think of all of the “Go Fish” versions we could create:

• sight words
• numbers
• addition questions matched with sums
• subtraction questions matched with sums
• compound words (“sand” would match with “wich”)
• capital cities

I can see this card game being a weekly feature in our homeschool!

I hope you are having a lovely day – thank you so much for reading. Please come back again soon!

xo

Sarah

Name: Go Fish

Number of players: Normal Go Fish rules suggest between three and six people for one deck of cards. It can be played with two people but loses some of the tension

Recommended ages: 7 and over

Average playing time: Playing through a whole deck will take around 15 minutes

Overview

Learning how to play Go Fish can be a great way to introduce children to playing card games. It also acts as a great game to teach social skills, as players need to talk to each other politely and listen to the conversations being had by other players in order to be successful. It is a card collection game, so you may need to find a way for players will smaller hands to display a large number of cards in front of them.

How to Play

The Go Fish rules are very simple, but each household will have its own variation. The traditional Go Fish card game rules are as follows:

• Each player is dealt seven cards face down from the deck. Many players then group these cards together in numerical order to see what cards they should ask for.
• Usual Go Fish rules dictate that the youngest player goes first. They can ask any other player to give them cards from their hand. The only stipulation is that they must hold at least one of the cards that they are requesting. For example, a player holding a queen may ask any other player to give them all of their queens. They may not ask others for queens if they do not hold one themselves.
• If the player being asked has one or more of the requested cards, they must declare them and hand them over. The person then asks another player for cards. They continue this until someone says no. However, instead of saying no, the player being asked says, “go fish.” The player then must pick up a card from the deck. If the card drawn is not the one they were requesting, they add it to their other cards and their turn is over. Some variations of the Go Fish rules say that if player picks up what they requested, they have to declare it, saying, “Fish got my wish.”
• When the players gather four like cards, such as four jacks or four aces, they place them facedown to the side. The game has two different endings, depending on the rules in play. Some households end the game when one person has used all of their cards. Others play until all 13 sets have been stored.

Winning the Game

Winning a game of Go Fish is very simple. You just need to have more sets of four than any other players. It is not unusual for games to end in a tie, and in this case, players will often request a rematch.

Strategies

Players who listen carefully to the requests of others will quickly work out where the majority of cards are and who they should be asking when it is their turn. You should also be aware that when you ask another player for something, you are effectively revealing part of your hand, so it is best to keep asking for the same things to keep your hand a mystery.

Go Fish Card Game online, free

Final Thoughts

Go Fish Card Game Rules

If you are playing with younger players, the game can be made to go a little quicker by adapting the Go Fish rules. Common changes are to allow players to store cards in pairs rather than groups of four. This also removes the horrible feeling when someone takes a set of three from you that you have been carefully collecting. You can also make it so that each person can only ask once per round regardless of whether they are asked to go fish or not.

Go Fish Card Game Images

Remember to have fun!

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