Las Banderas Volteadas (Flag Game)

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This summer I will be hosting a Spanish camp where we will focus a bit more on geography and the flags of the Spanish-speaking countries. I have been coming up with activities (games and crafts) to focus on the flags. (You can see more ideas here.)  I recently came across a game called Flipping Flags in which you flip over cards with three flags on them. Those playing keep turning over cards on the table until they see a match. As soon as they do, they call out the name of the country. It is fast-paced and looked fun. The only problem was that it contained all the flags from around the world. I only wanted to focus on the 21 Spanish-speaking countries. 

I had recently bought a thematic unit on Spanish-speaking countries from The Enlightened Elephant (You can see it here.). I printed out the flags at a reduced size. They needed to be small enough to fit three of them on one 4 inch by 3 inch card.  I printed out about 10 copies of each flag so that I could make a ton of cards. I then put three different flags on each card and then laminated them. You don't have to worry about which three to put on a card just make sure that they are different. I ended up with about 60 cards give or take which will allow me to split up the cards and have two games going with two different small groups (2-5 players would work).

Here's how you play:

• Give each player an equal amount of cards.
• Players don't look at the cards. Instead, they place the stack face down in front of them.
• One player announces "Volteemos" and everyone flips over a card from their stack.
• If there is a match, then the first player to call out the country with matching flags gets those two cards.
• If there is no match then leave the flipped cards on the table and keep playing by calling out "Volteemos" and flipping over cards until a match is seen. It can then be called out, but remember, the player can only pick up the two cards that he/she calls and that match. All the rest of the cards are left on the table. 
• You can set a timer and the player with the most cards at the end wins.

This is a great way to get kids looking at the flags which in turn will help them recognize the flags later on.  Have fun!