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Card Games and Their History

Card games can be used to turn a boring requirement into a fun pastime, or to reinforce and review lessons you've taught. Cards are a great item to take along on camping trips, or to have in your ?meeting plan emergency kit?.
The Chinese most likely invented cards. France?s King Charles VI purchased the first known deck of cards in 1392. By 1400, cards were popular throughout Europe. Some were round, others were square. Pasteboard cards were invented to prevent cheating, as the black paste (called ?gook?) used to paste the boards together prevented players from seeing through the paper.
The French standardized the deck into a 52-card pack with four suits, and limited the colors to black and red.
In 1966, during the Vietnam War, the U.S. Army used playing cards as a psychological weapon against the enemy. These decks contained only the ace of spades, which Vietnamese consider the card of death. The black ace had a woman?s picture in the center, another evil symbol in the Far East. Pilots would drop these ?calling cards? behind enemy lines, their own version of ?War?.
NASA also used specially designed flameproof cards in Skylab Earth Orbital Workshops, as a diversion of astronauts on long-duration space missions.
Americans call a set of cards a ?deck?, Russians call it ?Korona? (crown), Poles ?talia? (waist), Czechs say ?balicek?, and Hungarians ?csomag? (packet). Italians use ?Mazzo? (bunch), French ?un jeu de cartes?, Germans ?kartenspiel?, Dutch ?kaartspel? and Danish ?spilkort?, which all mean playing cards.
Almost everyone knows how to play a card game. Popular rules can be modified like the suggestions below, to fit your meeting plan requirements.


Say It Eights

Materials needed: at least two decks of old playing cards (it doesn?t matter if a few cards are missing), permanent marker.

Sort the cards by suit, making sets of cards with numbers one to ten. On each suit, write the names of the numbers in a foreign language. For instance, clubs will be French; spades will be Spanish, etc. Use as many suits as you need to meet your requirement about learning to count in other languages. Play Crazy Eights with the cards, announcing your play in the language on the card you are laying down.

Crazy States

Materials needed: state flash cards.
If you do not have state flash cards, you can make them on a computer art program that has maps.

Play Crazy Eights, Rummy or Old Maid using the state flash cards. Try to get sets of three, in the following categories: states that start with the same letter, in order of acceptance to the Union, states that touch each other on the map, or states with the same state bird or flower.


Traveler Concentration

Materials: index cards, pictures of traffic signs, markers, glue.

Make a deck of cards with sets of two traffic signs. On one card, write the name of the sign, and on the other card, write the response to the sign. For instance, ?stop? and ?come to a complete stop?. Play Concentration by placing all the cards face down in a grid pattern. The first player turns over two cards, reading the information out loud. If the two cards match, the player keeps them, and takes another turn. If the cards do not match, they are turned over, face down, in the same place that they were. When all of the cards have been claimed, the player with the most cards wins.

Critter Cards

Materials: index cards, several different colors of markers.

Make a deck of cards with four cards to a suit. Each suit is an animal, bird or fish. Each card has one clue about what that animal is. For instance, a robin?s suit would have ?gray feathers with a red belly?, ?eats worms?, ?first sign of spring?, and ?pale blue eggs.?
Make as many suits as you need. Make each suit a different color, or style of type, so that it is obvious which cards belong together or use stamps or stickers like the ones given out by the American Wildlife Federation. If desired, each youth can think of their own suits, and all of the cards can be put together to make a deck.
Use the cards to play Rummy, Old Maid, or another card game where you are trying to get a complete set of matching cards. When a player gets all four cards in a suit, they must lay them down, and identify the animal. If they correctly name the animal, they can keep the suit, and continue play. If they cannot name the animal, the player to the right can try to identify the animal, and if so, gets to add the suit to their pile. If no one can identify the animal, the leader gives the correct answer, and the cards are put back into play.