Flash Card Maker

The double-sided problem, and why this fixes it

Print fronts on one side and backs on the other in the same order, and every answer lands on the wrong card. When the sheet flips on its long edge the columns mirror: the card at top-left comes out at top-right. So the back sheet here reverses each row. It is a one-line fix that nobody discovers until they have cut sixty cards apart, which is the point of no return — so it is on by default.

Print double-sided, flip on the long edge, and check one card before you cut the stack.

Generating a whole fact family

“All of multiplication through 12” is a sentence, not an afternoon. Set the tables from 1 to 12 and pair them with 0 to 12 and you have the complete table, in order, with no duplicates and no gaps. Subtraction is generated as the operation that undoes an addition fact and division as the one that undoes a multiplication fact, so the deck can never contain 3 ÷ 7 or an answer below zero.

Which size for which job

• 2 per page — extra large — Whole-class flashing from the front of the room.
• 4 per page — large — Small group work and pocket charts.
• 6 per page — standard — The usual choice. Fits a rubber band.
• 8 per page — compact — Fact decks and word rings.
• 9 per page — small — Big decks where paper matters.

The deck library — ready-made, and still yours to edit

Somebody already typed the 315 Dolch sight words, all 118 elements with their atomic numbers, the 195 world capitals and every form of the Spanish present tense. Open the deck library above, load one, and the cards land in the box on the left — from that moment it is your deck. Reword a definition, drop the twelve you do not teach, add your own, print it at two cards a page for the front of the room.

The first twenty cards of every deck load for nothing, so you can read the actual wording before you decide. The full deck is $1.29, which also gets you the printable PDF with the backs already mirrored. Browse every deck by subject.

Card counts on that page are the real ones. The alphabet deck is 78 because the alphabet is 26 letters in three forms; the presidents deck is 47 because there have been 47 presidencies. Nothing is padded out with filler to reach a rounder number.

Already-made decks

The Math Fact Flash Card Vault is addition and subtraction to 10 and multiplication and division to 12 — 530 cards, printed and paginated with the backs already mirrored — and it comes with all four of those decks unlocked in this maker, so every card is editable too. This maker stays free. More at teacher resources.