Do kids play cards anymore? New solitaire games to try


Pocket Full of Therapy:

Time to unplug and play the old fashioned way - with cards!


Playing cards offer an opportunity to address so many skills: from hand motor skills, to cognitive, perceptual, organizational and of course social. It all depends on how you chose to use this versatile piece of equipment. 

Today we are going to review 2 solitaire games that can be used to practice motor skills. Most of us learned to first play clock face then basic solitaire (Klondike). They are great games that rely on luck. There are many YouTube videos that can refresh your memory of clock face. Two, lesser known solitaire games are: Monte Carlo and Accordion.
 
Monte Carlo:
OVERVIEW: Move all cards to the discard pile by matching pairs. 

SET  UP: After shuffling, deal - face up, a row of 5 cards. Repeat 4x so there are 5 rows of 5 cards. (Remember to focus on proper card handling techniques and keeping rows/columns neat and organized)

PLAY: Scan the layout for matching numbers (ignore suits/color). A match may be removed to the discard pile, IF they are next to each other, side by side; up/down OR they are diagonal to each other. After finding all pairs in the layout, carefully realign the remaining cards on the grid by moving them up and to the left to fill in the empty spaces. Be careful to keep the order and do not shuffle. New cards are then dealt to the bottom as needed. Repeat until all the possible matches are found.
Accordion:
Overview: leave as few cards as possible by matching suit or number in a stack. 

PLAY: deal 4 cards face up in a row. Look at the fourth card dealt. If it matches the third card (either suit or number) stack it on top. If not, count back 3 positions and see if it matches this card. Stack it on top if it does. Now look at the new card that is last and do the same. Deal one card at the end of the row and look again for matches. As cards get moved around and added to the end of the row remember to review the whole row each time. Continue until all matches are found. How many do you have left?

Variation: Make this a hand held game, that can be played anywhere. Hold the whole deck of cards in one hand - face up. Carefully fan out the top four cards and look for your matches. As you remove cards place them face down at the back of the stack. Continue revealing cards as you go until the stack is done.
              SET CARD GAME: 
 A great game to focus on attributes and not perfect matches. Race to find as many SETs as you can-the player with the most SETs at the end of the game wins! 
Players do not take turns but pick up 'Sets' as soon as they see them. A player must call 'Set' before picking up the cards. After a player has called 'Set', no other player can pick up cards until the first player is finished. If a player calls 'Set' and does not have one, the player loses one point. 
Four Attributes to focus upon and match:
Color, Shape, Filling, Number of objects
So: 3 diamond shapes (regardless of color) are a set; 3 purple cards (regardless of shapes); 3 cards filled with stripes match; 3 cards with only one object are a match, etc. 

This is a deck of cards that are unusual and the game can be structured as needed for each client. 

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