How do you accomplish team building and fun? The answer is games! Relationships, classroom culture, respect, understanding, and being able to truly work together are aspects of a well-run classroom. Sometimes this can’t be accomplished by just regular routines and assignments. Sometimes it is time for fun! Give you and your students some time to let loose and have a little fun! Take a look at these 15 fun games for the classroom!
15 Games For The Classroom
These 15 games for the classroom are the perfect addition to help fill some downtime without giving students free range of the classroom!
1. Charades
Who doesn’t love a good game of charades? Make charades school related by using science concepts and students can be a plant growing, or imitate historical figures you are studying. Choose a famous explorer and students can act out sailing and conquering a new land. Or simply have some fun with any random options for charades! Here is a great free website for random charades words to use!
2. Hangman
This one is a classic! Remember playing hangman as a kid and getting to write on the board? It is so much fun. Grab individual white boards, and this can be a group or pair game too. Choose vocabulary related to what you are learning or even your spelling list to keep it educational, but a good game of hangman can’t be beat! Virtually, this one works too.
3. Scattergories
Scattergories is definitely a board game, but it can also easily be modified for school! All you need is a list of categories and a timer. If you use Google Slides, import a YouTube video timer, and you’re all set! Just Google Scattegory lists or check out this Scattergories Category Generator for some category ideas! This one could easily be done virtually too!
4. Bingo!
Bingo can be made into anything! Math equations, vocabulary or spelling words, or even matching historical events or science terms! Grab a free bingo card, print, and go! You can pre-fill or have students create their own. For smaller kids, images could work well, too, or sight words are a great way to work on review by having some fun!
5. Draw Swords
Not real swords of course, but this is a great game to practice using the dictionary, thesaurus, or glossary of a textbook. This game will require at least two teams or small groups of students playing against each other. One person from each team comes to the front and puts the book (dictionary, thesaurus, or glossary) under their arm, and when the game master says go, they “draw their sword” or, in this case, their book and look for the word or picture called! First one to find it wins the round! This would be a great way to practice using resources or practice learning vocabulary!
6. Hot Potato
Yup, that’s right, bring that childhood game into the classroom! You can play hot potato just for fun or make it a review game too! Students may have to skip count, add a letter, or say a sight word before passing the hot potato. This fast-paced game will definitely be a hit. Oh, and don’t worry about using a potato. A ball works great!
7. Pictionary
Another fast-paced game is Pictionary! Grab a dry-erase marker or a pad of chart paper and have students draw their hearts out! You could use content-specific terms or just hit the Pictionary generator for some fun ideas!
8. I SPY
This game has lots of variations too! You can do the traditional I SPY with colors and people guessing, which is still so much fun, even as an adult! You can also print out items in the classroom and make the game more of a scavenger hunt. Make it a little more difficult by changing the color to a letter practicing those phonics skills! This one can also easily become a virtual game too!
9. Beach Toss
Grab a beach ball from the dollar store, blow it up, and be done! Have students toss the ball back and forth and they will feel like they are breaking all the rules and have so much fun! Students can say something they did over the weekend, or answer a content question, repeat a sight word, or even skip count, or answer a comprehension question. The options are really endless!
10. Freeze Dance
Of course, dancing! You can go check out a GoNoodle, which kids love and freeze dance from there, or make your own variations with your own songs! Make it a challenge where students sit out if they don’t freeze or just have some fun! This is also another one that can be done in a virtual environment!
11. Heads Up, 7 Up
Another classic game when seven students stand and the others put their heads down on the desk but put their thumbs up. The “7” chosen students walk around quietly and choose one thumb to tap. When all heads are up, the students with thumbs tapped stand and choose the person they think tapped them. If they guess right, they get to switch spaces. This is another great one for team building, using clues to think critically, and overall, lots of fun.
12. Dog Bone
Yup, use a dog bone here. I would probably use a laminated one and not a real one for safety reasons; those bones are really heavy and hard. Students close their eyes as the dog bone is hidden and clues are given until the students find the bone! It is a classic mystery that needs to be solved with some thinking skills used to follow the clues!
13. Scrambled Eggs
This one is great for team building. One student waits in the hallway and all the students scramble into different seats, but one hides somewhere in the classroom. The child from the hall must figure out who is missing and where!
14. 20 Questions
One student gets to think of something and the other students get to ask up to 20 yes or no questions to try and figure it out! Let the correct guesser be the next to think of the new item! Again use content related words or vocabulary words to make it a review game!
15. Fly Swatters
Yup, go to the dollar store again and get some cheap fly swatters for a ton of fun. Practice swatting sight words, answers to math problems, or swatting places on the map. Set this up in groups or make it a scavenger hunt around the room!
Classroom games can really turn a classroom around. Students relax, have some fun, learn something new, and review content. These games are great for team building and working together too. If you are looking for some cool website games, click this link to check out some free websites that have games too! Have some fun with these 15 games for the classroom and let me know how it goes!