My kids and I had a blast playing memory with this homemade memory game that we made with pictures of some of our favorite memories of 2012. As you will see both my kids played ( although they aren’t ready to play against each other yet – their gap in abilities is still too vast) and both loved not only beating mom ( I am terrible at this game) but also retelling stories about each picture and the memory that went with it. Oh and it’s so easy to make. This is a great game for New Year’s Eve or New Year’s Day!
- Gather your materials. You will need some card stock, double stick tape, digital photos , scissors and marker.
- Choose 6 or more photos of favorite memories of 2012. You can print them out in a collage using a service like picmonkey.com or individually. Make sure you have 2 copies of each picture.
- Cut your pictures out. Mine are all black and white because I ran out of color ink not for any grand reason.
- Tape to the card stock.
- Cut out.
- I added the year on the back for fun. Also I plan on making this year after year.
- Time to play. First up was my wee one. I laid out 8 matches for her although I probably could have done 6.
- She loved seeing the photos of herself – her first day of school with her teacher was her favorite. The excitement was genuine when she made a match. She made six before she asked if she could play with her tea set 🙂 Next time I will keep the number of cards lower.
- Then we set it up for my 6 year old.
He got the whole deck and was eager to show off. 
He didn’t know what photos I chose for the game and was happy to recount the stories that went with many of the photos. 
His favorite was a photo of him playing with our contributing writer Kim’s son .
He made matches so quickly and counted them up after each one. It was a perfect opportunity to skip count by two as well.
Happy New Year!
Valentina says
I love your game. Thank you for sharing. I intend to do it with my girls too.
I wish you a Happy new Year! I very much admire you for your immagination, you inspire me all the time.
Eddie - The Usual Mayhem says
Allie, what a great idea! My kids would love this (although we’d probably have to do an abbreviated version rather than the 20-year version, lol) Thanks for sharing – off to hunt through pictures now to get it made!
Lorie says
What a cute idea! It might be fun for older kids to make the matches two different pictures from the same event.
Rachel says
I <3 this idea!!! I will be making a set to play with my preschool class. Thanks for the constant inspiration. Your blog is amazing!
Marnie says
Adorable!!
Becki says
I LOVE this idea!
Carrie says
Just made ones up for each of my kids… great idea! I had avery full page label sheets left so I used those for printing the pics
admin says
Oh that would be rad!
Yogamama says
We are totally going to do this! I printed out the pictures and everything! Now for gluing!
Stephanie says
LOVE this idea! Can’t wait until mine are old enough! Happy New Year to you and yours!
S.Moon says
I love your simple creative activities!
Mystika Faith says
I absolutely love this idea! And I’m sure my kids will love it too!
Lina says
What a cute idea! Love it. I think we’ll try this maybe on pieces of wood!