• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

The Little Den

Learn. Travel. Explore.

  • Home
  • About
  • Travel
    • France
    • Spain
    • Scotland
    • Switzerland
    • England
  • Learn
  • Create
  • Inspire
  • Contact
    • Contact
    • Privacy Policy
    • Copyright
    • Affiliate Disclosure
You are here: Home / Learn / Make your own Top Trumps! Numeracy, Literacy & Writing Practice [Updated 2020]

Make your own Top Trumps! Numeracy, Literacy & Writing Practice [Updated 2020]

by The Little Den Leave a Comment

  • Share
  • Tweet

Why should you create your own top trumps?

Top Trump - monster card

They are great for practising numeracy, writing and spelling skills – not to mention getting those creative juices flowing! They are also fun to play with during long travel journeys or if you’re stuck at home during lockdown!

Our home-made Top Trumps

We had a delightful family stay in our gite (holiday cottage) a couple of summers ago and their son had brought along his own set of home-made top trump cards, a set of Monster Top Trump cards. Mr 7 and this lovely 9 year old had lots of fun playing against each other during the course of our guests’ stay. Mr 7 thought this was a wonderful idea and set off to make his own set. A year or so later, his set has become a little tatty and dog-eared, and I decided it would be fun to start over again with a fresh set. It’s so easy to set up and create – here is a quick rundown of the steps required to make your own set of homemade top trumps!

Any post on this site may contain affiliate links. If you use them, they cost you nothing extra. We make a small commission.

How to make your own top trumps: step-by-step guide

Step 1:

Make your own top trops template. Get a piece of thick paper and trace around a card from another card game to create a new set. Trace as many card shapes as you like.

Create card template
Create a card template

Step 2:

Set up the activity: all you’ll need are some biros, felt-tip pens, a ruler and some templates to customise. Depending on your children’s age, get them to cut out the card shapes themselves. It’s great for their fine motor skill practise.

Top trumps set up
DIY Top Trumps set up

Step 3:

Decide on a name or theme for your top trump set as well as the categories you would like to include in your cards. Mr 8 opted for another set of Monster Top Trumps and chose the following categories :

  • Speed
  • Ugliness
  • Strength
Top Trumps - cutting out the cards from the template
Mr 8 was happy to cut the cards out himself

Step 4:

Encourage your kids to get to work and create some gruesome monsters! Once, they’re finished, laminate the cards and hey presto, you’ll be ready to play! Mr 8 has had lots of fun playing with them against his Dad.

Monster cards
Oops, looks like Mr 8 forgot to use the ruler!

Your kids will get a real thrill out of playing with their *own* customised top trumps. They would also be a really fun present to make for another sibling or young relative.

Top trumps theme ideas

You can of course create sets in lots of different themes – cars, princesses, aliens, etc. The sky’s the limit! Here are some ideas:

Dinosaur top trumps categories:

  • Height
  • Length
  • Weight
  • Age
  • Killer rating

Alien top trumps categories:

  • Strength
  • Skill
  • Freakiness
  • Intelligence

Princess top trumps categories:

  • Superpowers
  • Courage
  • Kindness

How to play top trumps

Top trumps is a very simple and straightforward game that can be played by everyone (children need to be able to read and have an understanding of numbers/values). Number of players is 2+.

Here’s a short video that explains how to play top trumps and we’ve also got written instructions below providing a step-by-step guide on how to play the game:

  1. Deal all the cards face down among all the players. You need a minimum of 2 players. Each player holds their cards so that they can only see the top card.
  2. The youngest player or the person to the left of the dealer starts off the game. They read out an item from their top card – for example, strength value = 89.
  3. The rest of the players take it in turns to read out the same item on their card. The person with the highest value wins and gets to keep everyone else’s card. They place their top card + the ones they’ve collected from the rest of the players and place them at the bottom of their own pile. 
  4. The person who has won the round gets to take the next turn and chooses an item from their (new) top card. And so it carries on until one person ends up with all the cards. That person is the winner!

NB. If two or more cards have the same top value or no value is available for that category, then all the cards are placed in a pile in the centre and the same player gets to go again and chooses a category from his/her next top card. The winner of the hand takes all the cards in the centre as well. 

TIP: If you’re looking for other ideas to keep your kids busy during travel journeys, be sure to check out our photo scavenger hunt post

MORE FROM MY SITE

  • Marble PaintingMarble Painting
  • Letters in NatureLetters in Nature
  • Number Stones and Sequencing PracticeNumber Stones and Sequencing Practice
  • Practise those tricky words with a Disney Frozen Reading Machine!Frozen Reading Machine
  • Naked Egg Science ExperimentNaked Egg Science Experiment
  • Photo Scavenger Hunt for KidsPhoto Scavenger Hunt for Kids – Dordogne
  • Share
  • Tweet

Filed Under: Create, Learn Tagged With: creativity, drawing, numeracy, spelling, top trumps

Previous Post: « Marble Painting
Next Post: Things I’ve loved in 2015 »

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar

Hit Search:

  • E-mail
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest
  • Twitter

Popular Posts

Visit Versailles with Kids - Our Top Tips for Keeping Your Sanity

Visit Versailles with Kids: How to Preserve Your Sanity

Posted on
01
Edinburgh

Third Culture Kid – Home is Where?

Posted on
02
Tower of London - The White Tower

The Tower of London for Kids – Our 13 Top Tips!

Posted on
03

Footer

Privacy Policy

Privacy Policy: This blog does not share personal information with third parties nor do we store any information about your visit to this blog other than to analyze and optimize your content and reading experience through the use of cookies. You can turn off the use of cookies at anytime by changing your specific browser settings. We are not responsible for republished content from this blog on other blogs or websites without our permission. This privacy policy is subject to change without notice and was last updated on 01/03/2020. If you have any questions feel free to contact me directly here: hello at thelittleden dot com.

This site contains various affiliate links, which means that I may get a commission if you decide to purchase anything from suggested companies. They cost you nothing and help to keep The Little Den running. Thank you

© The Little Den, 2020. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to The Little Den with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Handcrafted with © 2020 - The Little Den

This website uses cookies to improve your experience. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish. Cookie settingsACCEPT
Privacy & Cookies Policy

Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may have an effect on your browsing experience.
Necessary
Always Enabled
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Non-necessary
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
SAVE & ACCEPT