Stacks & Storage

A card-based strategy activity that provides an opportunity to explore goals, planning, and flexibility.

Recommended Use

Best For

Counselors, educators, mentors, youth workers, and parents with youth ages 7+ who may benefit from more visual and tactile explanations for staying focused on tasks and thinking ahead.

Core Focus

A fun, tactile way to practice executive-function skills and create space to adapt when a plan needs to change.

Target Competencies

Working Memory: holding a goal, a sequence, and relevant available information in mind while considering a next move.
Inhibitory Control: pausing long enough to consider whether an immediate move serves the larger plan.
Cognitive Flexibility: adjusting when a new card, an earlier decision, or another player’s move changes what is possible.
Planning & Organization: considering order, access, and preparation rather than treating each choice as isolated.
Reflective Problem-Solving: considering what mistakes and successes may reveal for the next try or a future situation.

Founder's Note

Inside the design

“Stacks & Storage came from the card games I grew up playing as a kid. So many of those early games helped show me how to make choices and created space for connection with people who mattered to me. I wanted youth to have that same kind of experience.

We cannot just tell a child to think ahead and plan better; they need opportunities to see what that takes. The future will ask them to make decisions that no game can fully prepare them for, but Stacks & Storage was made to provide a fun starting point for practice, reflection, and conversation.”

Design Rationale

Decision-making often asks several things of a child at once: keep a goal in mind, notice what is available, decide what needs to happen first, and adjust when the plan changes. Stacks & Storage turns those demands into a shared, tactile challenge that makes planning, focus, and flexibility easier to see and discuss.

Its design brings goal maintenance, sequencing, future planning, and adaptation into one repeatable card-game experience. The activity is not an assessment or a stand-in for real-life decisions; it provides a manageable starting point for guided practice, reflection, and conversation.

Get Access

$15 One-time

Facilitator Webguide
Activity Reference
Connection at Home Caregiver Extension
Stacks & Storage Print & Play Pack

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