Teaching KANA with card game

Make a deck of cards with each card featuring one kana.
It's probably best to have two cards for each kana. But don't use ん

Students play in groups of 3 to 5 (more are possible, but waiting for your turn to come around get to be a bit long in the tooth).
Each student is dealt five cards.

The remaining cards are placed face down in a stack, and the top card from the stack is placed face up (beginning a new stack)
The first player can discard any card in his hand that matches either the 行　or the vowel sound of the face-up card.

Example: if the face up card is か, then the player can play any card from the か行:　か　き　く　け　or　こ, OR may play any "ah" sound kana: あ　か　さ　た　な　は　ま　や　ら　or　わ

If the player cannot play a card, then he or she must draw a card from the face-down deck. (I usually play with the rule that a drawn card may be played in the same turn).

The next player does the same thing, based on the previous player's card.
The goal is to discard all of you cards, and the first player to do so "wins". (really, its the player who learns the most that wins)

Usually, when a player is left with only one card after discarding, he or she must say "ICHI!" before the next player plays. If he or she fails to do so then he/she must draw four cards as penalty.

Other variations include:
-a player may play multiple cards of the same 行　in the same turn.
-cards of a particular 行 may have special characteristics: "reverse" "draw 2", etc.

It's a lot more fun than writing かかかかかかかかかかかかかかかかかかか time and time again, and a bit more effective I think. It engenders a lot of discussion about the subject, such that students learn "hey, I'm not the only person who confuses ぬねれ and わ", rather than struggling in isolation.

[J Dunn]

=-=-=-=-= more variations -- though not the first time. [R. Young]

1. Make an "n" card. It is a Wild Card and can be played on any card. The player names it (i.e. assigns it a kana value).
2. Playing a "ten-ten" or "maru" variant card (ga, gi, gu, etc.) automatically reverses the direction of the play.
3. The student has to say the name of his/her card aloud as she plays it. (Failure to do so... well, if you want to play hard... the player has to take his/her card back.)
4. A player who places a card that ends a word based on the previous card can say the word and its English meaning. This allows him to have another player of his choice to draw an extra card. For example: placing a "ba" after a "ka" makes "kaba" (hippo) or "shi" after "su" =
"sushi."
5. Instead of calling out "ICHI" when one card remains, how about "ICHIMAI!"