Trading cards are for way more than just baseball nowadays. Every sport has their own set, or even sets, and there are an increasing number of character trading cards like Pokemon^® appearing in our student's backpacks.

You can capitalize on this interest and experience by having students create a trading card to apply their learning through a product type that isn't solely academic. Wixie makes it easy to create and print sets of trading cards in your classroom for books you are reading or topics you are studying.

What's on a trading card?

Trading cards are usually about a single person, but they can also be about a place, event, or even an object. The front of a trading card is usually reserved for an image of the person and the back includes important information about the person on the front. You can follow this format if you have the ability to print on both sides of a page, but if not, combine the image and information on one side.

Why create trading cards?

Trading cards are unique forms of informational text. They include images, headings and subheadings, bullets, and often charts of data making them great examples of how and why to use the features of nonfiction text. The first time students get a single trading card, they may read top to bottom and right to left, but once they have started a collection, they learn to use them as a reference, scanning them for information. 

Because of their small size, the space for information on a trading card is limited. If they are creating their own cards, students must analyze the information they have about the content and then delete, edit, and evaluate it to create a summary. This process of evaluating and determining importance to write a concise summary helps students better grasp the content they are writing about.

It's easy to get started

When students log in to Wixie, they can simply use the field at the top to search for a trading card template.

You can search as a teacher to find a trading card template and assign it to your students. These also show at the top of your student's Wixie home page when they log in.

Creating and printing trading cards in Wixie

Wixie makes it easy to combine text and images, and lay them out on a page, so designing the card after the research is complete is easy. Wixie also makes it easy to print a single page or multiple pages as trading cards.

If each student has made one card or a single page, they simply click the File menu and choose Print. At the Print dialog, choose Trading Cards and select Repeat Page to print 9 pages to a single sheet of paper. Then, cut out the cards and trade them with classmates.

Students can use plastic baseball card holders to store in a notebook or collect cards in boxes like Altoid^® tins.

To create a collected set of all student work, log in to your teacher account in Wixie and start a new project. Go to the File menu and choose Import Pages. You can then select each student's card to combine into a single Wixie file. Then, instead of choosing Repeat Page when you print, just choose Trading Cards to print the entire set at once.

Trading card ideas

Vocabulary

Learning vocabulary and terminology is a lot of rote memorization. Images and contexts can help, so have students create a trading card that includes definitions, synonyms, antonyms, and visuals (non-linguistic representations) to help them remember the definition. If you assign each student a specific term relating to the topic, event, or subject you are studying, they can create, print, and trade and then use them much like flashcards to help them internalize the meaning.

Fictional characters

Have students create trading cards for characters in a novel you are reading. This is a great way to help you evaluate their comprehension since they will have to share physical characteristics, but also character traits, motivations, fears, and more.

Historic figures

Students can create cards for important figures during a historical event the same way they create cards for fictional characters in a book they are reading. Physical characteristics are important, but so are motivations, fears, and character traits like leadership.

Move beyond information!

Cards like Pokemon^® and Mythomagic^® go beyond just information. They include powers and rankings and points to demonstrate how they relate to the characters on other cards. Use this game format to move beyond basic information about characters in a book or important figures in history to ranking them and turning it into a game!

Imagine what lively conversations and deep thinking your students would need to do to determine the powers of important contributors to the American Revolution! How might their "powers" match up against the "powers" of another in a competitive game? For example, Thomas Paine vs. Ben Franklin or a Loyalist vs. a Patriot. 

Find more information in Creative Educator's Create a Card Game lesson.

No matter what you choose, have fun. This is project students love! And please share your ideas for trading cards in the comments.