Corralling a bunch of kindergarteners can often be quite a difficult task, as they can famously be full of energy, and keeping their attention for long periods can be a task unto itself.
One of the best ways to bring a kindergarten class together is to get them involved with some classroom games.
These games can not only help to engage their minds and get them moving but can also teach them to engage with one another and develop bonds and friendships.
As such, you’ve likely found your way here because you want to know some of the very best games that you can implement in your kindergarten classroom.
Well, you’ve come to the perfect place, because we have gone through and picked some of the very best games that kindergarteners are bound to enjoy!
1. ‘Buzz’
One of the most important things to teach kindergarten-age kids is to retain information, especially information within certain categories.
One of the best games to help kids to improve their memory retention is the game ‘Buzz’!
Buzz helps the children not only to remember things, such as the orders of items like numbers but also helps them to think more critically and introspectively about the things they are memorizing.
To play the game, get the kids to list out some things like a series of numbers from 1 to 100, or a series of farm animals.
Once the kids have come up with a list of their choice, get them to list out each of the items from their chosen category, but get them to swap a few of the items with the word ‘Buzz’.
The items they swap for ‘Buzz’ can depend on the rule you set. For example, if you made them list out numbers from 1 to 100, then you could get them to replace every four numbers with the word ‘Buzz’.
If they listed farm animals, then you could get them to replace every animal that begins with a certain letter!
Any child that doesn’t replace the correct item with ‘Buzz’ is out of the game, which adds a great competitive element to the game that makes it all very engaging, and makes them want to play again and again.
This game helps the children to think critically, which in turn also helps them to internalize some of the lists they come up with.
This can be great for helping them to learn basic arithmetic, ready for grade school!
2. ‘What’s Missing?’
This is one of the best games to play with kindergarteners because it is incredibly simple but helps the kids to work on their memory retention and their object permanence.
It’s also engaging for their minds, which helps them to stay engaged and quiet for hours at a time.
In order to play this game, divide the children into teams of around four, and give each of them a set of flash cards.
Take the flashcards and show them around 3 or 5 chosen cards for a few seconds, so that they can memorize them.
Once those few seconds have elapsed, hide the cards, shuffle them, and then show them just two of the cards you showed them earlier.
From here, encourage the kids to call out the cards that are now missing from the pack.
You can easily set each of the groups of four children to play this game amongst themselves.
Every round a different child takes charge of the cards and asks the other children to call out the missing ones.
This game is very fast-paced and simple, which will have the kids wanting to play ‘Just one more’ game, helping to keep them engaged for ages!
3. Balloon Football
Sometimes kindergarten children are full of so much energy, and it can be impossible to get them to sit still for even just a few minutes.
The best way to help them to settle down is to allow them to use up a bit of their energy.
One of the most popular games for kindergarteners to play and use up their energy is soccer. The only problem is, setting children loose with a soccer ball in the classroom is a recipe for disaster.
However, if it is a rainy day, and the kids are getting restless, then all you need is a few balloons and some make-shift goalposts to allow them to safely play soccer indoors!
Allow small groups of the children to run around kicking the balloon, trying to get it into the goal you have created.
It can be fun to line the children up and have them take turns kicking the balloon towards the goal.
This is a great game because a balloon can be kicked with a lot of force but not be at risk of careening toward a delicate window.
As well as this, it is also engaging even just for the children to watch and cheer one another on from the sidelines.
4. Sock Puppet
Naturally, kindergarteners have very active and wild imaginations, and this can make them very creative. This amazing activity can be beneficial for kindergarteners for a number of reasons.
To start this activity off, you can invite the kids to bring in some old and unused socks from home.
This will teach the children the importance of making use of old things, and the importance of recycling for the benefit of the environment.
Secondly, this activity allows the children to create sock puppets however they like, to create their own characters and imbue them with personality.
Best of all, with some simple glue, you can create sock puppets without any need for sewing, which makes it doubly safe for the kids.
Once the kids have created their sock puppets, you can invite them to play around with them in small groups, and get them to put on a little performance by creating a story that involves them all.
This can allow them to play with their imaginations and can invite them to practice their fine motor skills to control the puppets.
5. Blind Artist
If you have just a few kindergarteners to look over for the day, then this can be a good way to keep them engaged and allow them to develop some strong bonds.
To play this game, divide the children into pairs, and provide the children with some blank paper and some art implements like a pencil or some colored pens.
Have the children sit back-to-back, and have one of each of the children in each pair describe an image that you have given them.
The other child will control the blank piece of paper and the artistic implement, trying to recreate the image from the descriptions of the other child.
This is a very fun game that engages the mind of both children.
Mistakes are a part of the game, and once the children see one another’s results, there’s likely to be a cacophony of giggles!
Another reason this game is good is because it teaches the children to work on their ability to describe what they see, as well as how to describe actions, such as “Draw a small circle”.
The child making the art will be able to work on their fine motor skills and their ability to listen to instructions accordingly.
6. Miming!
This game is rather similar to charades but instead helps the children to memorize more simple things such as verbs and nouns, which helps with their vocabulary.
In order to play this game, write down a short list of verbs, such as ‘driving a car’, and ‘reading a book’, or nouns, such as ‘Dog’ or ‘Lion’.
Once you have created a good list, divide the children up into small teams.
One of the children in each team will be given one of the words from your list, and it is their responsibility to act out the word for the other kids so that they can guess what the word is.
Keep a tally of which kids get the answer right first so that they can compete to get the most correct guesses.
Competition helps to keep the kids engaged, and acting out the different words is incredibly fun and will send them into fits of laughter.
This game also has the educational benefit of helping the kids to associate words with images, which helps them to retain words for their vocabulary!
To Wrap Up
There we have it. These 6 games are sure to get kindergarteners engaged and have them entertained for hours at a time. Try out some of them with your class today.
Each of these games are designed to help keep the kids’ minds engaged, and also have numerous educational benefits, and help them to create bonds with their classmates.
We picked out some of the games that are easiest to set up, and still keep the kids engaged while teaching them all kinds of important things.
Hi, my name is Helena Waters and I was a teacher for 40 years before retiring last year.
During my time as a teacher I dedicated the majority of it to making classrooms as fun as possible, with educational parties, fun activities, and low cost entertainment that made the children excited about learning.
I taught children of all ages, from preschoolers to high school students. Now, with the pandemic having uprooted everything that children once knew about school and learning, I think that the need for my ideas is bigger than ever.
That is why I created School Sparks, a place in which I can write down and share all of my ideas on how to get students excited about going to school again. I hope that you’ll find some useful within a school setting, even at home too!
