If you are on Twitter, make sure to give our friend Carrie a follow. This New Jersey Devils fan and mother of two boys who has been using hockey cards as a tool to teach her kids as they practice social distancing by staying at home in the wake of the COVID-19 Coronavirus pandemic. Each of her lessons is really quite clever and fun. Here’s a look at some of the creative ways she is using NHL cards in the “classroom” at home:
One of our favorite tips she had was using hockey cards to formulate sentences using sight words on their arts and crafts table. As Devils fans, the kids clearly know some of the team’s rivals!
We loved seeing her posts and felt like the Midgley family was definitely deserving of a special Upper Deck Random Acts of Kindness package. On Friday once we saw the tracking information showing it arrived, we let her know to go check her front door.
They scored some new Upper Deck trading card boxes, New Jersey Devils insert cards and more! Her oldest son received one of our fun gauges and immediate turned it all the way up to HIGH.
Carrie, always teaching, used the gift we sent as an opportunity to teach the boys something else; how to send a “Thank You” letter.
Carrie told us that her boys are such hockey nuts that when she uses them in home lessons, the boys don’t even feel like they are doing school work. Back in October she explained that her oldest son’s teacher was impressed he could count to 100 because he associated each number to a player. He only had an issue with two numbers at 12 and 21, confusing Ben Lovejoy with Kyle Palmieri.
For her 3-year-old she uses hockey to help teach him rules. You have to follow the rules or you get a penalty. Fighting with your brother gets you a 5 minute major penalty. Taking turns is like a line change, sharing is like passing and you always listen to your coach (Mom).
Carrie even does speech training with the boys by saying a team name and having the boys repeat it in their arena announcer’s voice. She said, “I’m having fun doing this one-on-one instruction with them using cards because we are learning this home school thing together.”
Stick tap to you Carrie, you’ve obviously got these boys on a Hall-of-Fame path! Do you have some tips on ways you can use trading cards to help teach kids at home during this difficult time? Share them with Upper Deck on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram using the hashtag #UDEducates. Maybe we will feature you for a future story!
