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The Flashcard Factory is a team-oriented vocabulary game in Pear Deck where students work together to create flashcards by writing example sentences and illustrations for a list of vocabulary terms. At the end of the game, you and your students review all submitted cards, select the final set, and then print or export to Gimkit Live. Pear Deck Vocabulary and the Flashcard Factory are available only for users who sign in with a Google account.
Both teachers and students must sign in with a Google account to use the Flashcard Factory.

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Create a Vocabulary List

  1. Go to Pear Deck and sign in as a teacher.
  2. Click Flashcard Factory.
  3. Add vocabulary terms by pasting in a list or typing terms directly. Merriam-Webster is available to help fill in definitions as you go.
You can choose whether to provide definitions. During the game, students write an example sentence for each card, or you can instruct them to write definitions instead. For a full walkthrough of building your list, see Create a Vocabulary List.

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Play the Flashcard Factory Game

Projecting the game in front of the room makes it more engaging, but a projector is not required.
  1. In the Vocabulary Editor, click the blue Play Flashcard Factory button.
  2. Pear Deck displays join instructions on your Projector View. Students go to joinpd.com, sign in with their Google account, and enter the session code displayed on screen.
  3. Monitor the student count in the upper-right corner. When everyone has joined, click Clock In.
  4. Students are automatically paired to create cards together. If the class has an uneven number of students, one student works alone. Click Shuffle Teams to redistribute pairings.
  5. Click Let’s Play to enter the Production Phase.
Once you move into the Production Phase, you cannot navigate back to shuffle teams or view groups. Students who join after the Production Phase begins work independently on their own cards.
  1. Students create their cards in the Student View. You can review submissions on the Projector View as they come in and identify the strongest examples for the final set.

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Choose Your Final Flashcard Set

  1. When you are ready to stop card creation, click Quality Control to move to the Quality Control phase.
  2. In Quality Control, approve or dismiss each card for the final set. Displaying the Projector View lets the whole class weigh in together.
  3. After reviewing all cards, click Shipping Phase to proceed.

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See Who Made Each Card

Pear Deck shows student responses anonymously by default. When you need to identify who created a specific card, you can reveal the name without displaying it to the class.
  1. Open the Flashcard Factory game. You can do this during a live session or by reopening the game from your Sessions menu.
  2. Go to Quality Control.
  3. Hover your cursor over a card and wait a few seconds. The student’s name appears.
If a card is distracting or better addressed privately, click the X to remove it from the main screen and exclude it from the final set.

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Export, Print, and Review the Cards

  1. In the Shipping Phase, click Print Set or Export to Gimkit Live.
  2. A new window opens. Select Print Flashcard Set or Export to Gimkit.
  • Print: The print menu opens. If a flashcard is missing a definition, example, or image, the printed card includes blank space so students can fill it in by hand.
  • Export to Gimkit: Students receive a direct link to the set in Gimkit on their screens, and you get the link on your Projector View. New Gimkit users need a free Gimkit account to play. When you publish a set to Gimkit through Pear Deck, it lives in the Pear Deck account and is always available to replay at no cost. Copying a set to a personal Gimkit account counts toward the 5-kit limit on the Gimkit Free plan.

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Resources

Create a Vocabulary List

Build and manage the vocabulary term list used in the Flashcard Factory game.

How to Play the Flashcard Factory

Visual walkthrough of the Flashcard Factory game from the Pear Deck help center.
Last modified on July 14, 2026