Sometimes, it can feel really difficult to come up with new and interesting ideas for the classroom, and find something that will entertain your students.
Now and then, you just need to lighten the mood and find something that will raise the energy of the class, and get the positive vibes flowing through the space.
If you’re looking for some fun and interesting classroom games that you can play with your students, then thankfully, you’ve come to the right place.
Below, we’ve compiled a list of what we believe to be some of the funniest and most entertaining classroom based games that you can play.
These range from everything to board games, to action based games, and are sure to keep everyone’s spirits high.
If you’re looking for some much needed inspiration, then we suggest that you keep reading below, as we’re about to dive in.
Charades
Why not start off with an absolute classic. We know that almost everyone has played charades at some point in their lives, but there’s a reason why it’s so darn popular.
Charades is a great way to share some laughs as everyone tries to guess what the person in question is trying to convey.
It also has a lot of skill building opportunities for children, and can help them with things such as public speaking if they’re not particularly confident in this area.
As well as this, it can also help them with vocabulary, as they think of new ways to demonstrate certain words to their classmates.
When a member of the classroom manages to successfully guess the word or phrase that the student is trying to perform, it can then be their turn to go up and create their own charade.
Live Quiz
Another incredibly fun game you can play in the classroom is to simply create a quiz that everyone can participate in.
You don’t even necessarily need to make up the questions yourself, as there are thousands of different ones that you can find online, covering all manner of different topics.
This also helps to drive competitiveness amongst the classroom, and they’ll have fun answering general knowledge questions that aren’t necessarily to do with traditional learning based subjects.
Depending on how many people are in your classroom, you can group everyone into teams. They can then have some fun coming up with a team name for themselves, and really get creative with it.
Connect Through Stories
Anyone who has played this within the classroom before will already know that it’s always a roaring success.
It essentially involves each member of the group coming up with a sentence that follows on from the previous one, and as a result, a story is formed that the entire class can take part in.
All you need to do is come up with an entertaining starting point, and then watch everything flow. This can go on and on, depending on how much time you need to fill.
We think that this is a really great one to play when the weather is rainy outside, and the kids aren’t able to go out of doors.
It also doesn’t require too much preparation or thinking on your part.
Egg Hunt
Doing a good old fashioned egg hunt doesn’t need to be reserved for Easter. Your students can have fun tracking down all manner of different items, and finding the clues along the way.
We think that this is a particularly good one if you have a larger classroom that needs to be occupied, and you can assign them all into teams.
Each team can then make their way through the classroom, and have fun trying to discern the clues.
We think that this one is particularly good for developing the student’s social skills, as it forces them to work as a part of a team to try and figure out all of the various clues on offer.
You can award the winning team with a prize, and make the game as elaborate or as short as you want.
Tell Me Five
This is a great game to play within the classroom, and will really get your students thinking rapidly.
It involves dividing each member of the class into groups, and then giving each group a particular category to work on.
For example, you might give them the category ‘hamburger toppings’, and it is then their responsibility to come up with five things that fall into that particular category.
Your students will go ahead and choose other things that are related to that category, such as cheese, lettuce, tomato, pickles, relish etc…
They will need to write these items up on the board as they go, and the fun part is that they only have 20 seconds to provide these answers, so they have to be quick!
This is truly a super fun and entertaining game, and helps to raise the energy in the room.
The best thing about this one is that you can play it virtually too, all you have to do is activate the online whiteboard tool, and your students can use this to write their answers on.
This game is also really great at improving your student’s vocabulary, as it urges them to think up different words and phrases related to their category.
Show And Tell
Show and tell is another classic game that you can play with your students that just never seems to get old.
We’d recommend playing show and tell if you have a few quiet members in your classroom that you’d like to help open up a bit.
Show and tell doesn’t necessarily have to be about memories or sentimental objects though, as you can transform this game into something incredibly fun and entertaining.
For example, you could instruct your students to bring in their favorite snack to school for show and tell, and their task for that day is to tell an interesting story that happened relating to that particular snack.
You can even make it into a full fledged competition, and have everyone vote for their favorite storyteller at the end.
This is a great way of expanding your students vocabulary, by conveying something using just their words.
Word Jumble Race
If you’re looking for a super easy and straightforward game to play in your classroom, then we’d recommend playing a game called ‘word jumble race’.
You will essentially either need to come up with or find a story, then copy and paste this, enlarging the font in the process, and making sure that each of the words are adequately spaced apart.
You can then go ahead and print this out, and cut up all of the words, then jumble them up.
You can group everyone in your class into teams, and then make it their job to reassemble the words until they’re in the correct order.
This can really help to drive competitive spirit, and your students will enjoy working with one another to try and form the story.
We recommend making the story itself as silly as possible, so that it’s really fun and entertaining for the kids to read once they’re finished.
Pictionary
This one is great for helping your students develop their drawing skills, as well as their creativity.
Pictionary essentially involves you coming up with a word, then secretly whispering it to a member of the classroom.
They will then have a total of 20 minutes to draw the item in question. The rest of the class then have to try and guess what they’ve come up with.
You can make the stakes even higher and divide the classroom into two separate groups, and see who is able to guess what the picture is first.
Memorize The Object
This game is really helpful for exercising your student’s memorization skills.
It involves placing a number of different random objects around the classroom, then allowing everyone to study them for a few minutes.
After this is done, you tell them to close their eyes, then go ahead and collect the items.
They will then have to write down all of the objects that they studied, as well as the location within the classroom they were in.
Final Thoughts
To sum up, there are a whole host of different games that can boost creativity and fun in the classroom. We hope that we’ve provided you with some inspiration.
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!
