Educational and Pretty Memory Game

Baby Bear... *ahem* excuse me!  Little Bear has decided that she is much too old to be called Baby Bear.  "Baby Bear is for babies, but Little Bear is a good nickname for a kindergartner," she told me.

Little Bear's kindergarten teacher, Mrs. B, sent home three sheets of pink paper last week.  They were printed with rectangles, containing pairs of the words the class has worked on.  The instructions included with these sheets directed me to cut the rectangles out and play a memory game with my child.  Of course, I couldn't just cut them out and leave it at that.

First of all, if the light was behind them, you could see the word right through the back of the cards.  To fix this problem, I got out my Valentine's Day cardstock.  I covered the backs of the sheets of sight words with my trusty glue stick and laid them on the cardstock, making sure the cardstock pattern was going the same direction on all of them.  If the pattern isn't consistant, Little Bear would probably notice and she would remember the backs of the cards, rather than the words I was trying to teach her.  I cut the cards out and then realized there weren't very many.  Using plain paper and the remaining heart-patterned cardstock, I added some more of the sight words for kindergarten, referencing the list Mrs. B sent home last month.  Once I had gotten as many card pairs as possible from my piece of cardstock, I decided they needed a box.  Every good card game needs a box, right?

I went to the cabinet under my kitchen sink, where my recycleables live until I take them out to the big recycling bin in the back yard, and found a allergy nose spray box.  **I feel the need to pause here and ponder the possible justifications for double-packaging things.  I realize that those boxes are easier to stack than the bottles, but what a waste!**

Okay, I'm back now.  On the open top of the box, there are four flaps.  Of the two longer sides, one flap is smaller than the other.  I cut that one off at the crease, taped it to the larger flap, then trimmed it to the size I wanted.  The idea here is to make a flap that folds over the top of the box and tucks into the other side.  I covered the box with some pink floral scrapbooking paper, adhering it with double-stick tape, and trimmed off the excess around the flaps.  I folded the bottom like wrapping paper on a gift.

On a scrap of pretty cardstock, I wrote, "Kindergarten Sight Words Memory Game."  Catchy, right?  I stuck the label to the box with more double-stick tape (what did we ever do without it?).  Little Bear was thrilled with the result and insisted on showing Gramma and Mrs. B her pretty new memory game.