Printable games, flashcards, and hands-on manipulatives are awesome and low-prep ways to teach students, whether in homeschool or a large classroom. Printing on cardstock is a usually a necessity for these types of resources. Printing on colored cardstock is almost always my preference.
Whether it is flashcards or trivia cards for a board game, I prefer colored cardstock over plain white cardstock any day for one main reason: it is easy to sort the cards.
For Spanish 1, I made a set of flashcards to go with the curriculum. There are over 1000 flashcards for the whole curriculum! I purchased several different packs of colored cardstock to make sure the 12 different chapters had distinctly colored flashcards. It is easy to tell in which chapter to put a lost card or a card kept for review.
For printable games, it makes it easy to tell which cards go with which game, especially when several games are created for the same unit with different topics. When I was a classroom teacher, using different colors for different group sets of games or manipulatives made it quick and easy to sort mixed or lost bits between classes. Now, it just helps me organize resources quickly.
Using colored cardstock for manipulatives helps students visually organize steps in a process and makes it easier to give instructions. For an example of using colored cardstock to teach a concept, check out my activity for modeling PCR.
Colored cardstock costs a little more, but the convenience of organization by color and student engagement is priceless!
North Star Homeschool Resources 