Games for Teachers
We don't have to tell you that fun classroom games are worth their weight in gold! Encouraging critical thinking, building social skills, and helping engage students with the curriculum? Yes, please. Get ready to bring game-based learning to your classroom with helpful printables, escape rooms, and more educational fun for elementary school students.
With a long list of benefits of learning games on hand, the teachers at Teach Starter have spent hours creating classroom card games, board games, scavenger hunts, and more that can help students build core competencies while having a whole lot of fun!
Game-based learning has gotten a lot of interest in recent years, but what exactly, is it? We know you've got a lot to do in your classroom and not a whole lot of time to do it, so our teacher team has put together a quick guide to gamification in education.
(Know all you need to know? Feel free to jump ahead to our printable and digital learning games!)
What Is Game-Based Learning?
In essence, game-based learning allows you to borrow from the gaming world to allow your students to engage with their lesson material in more dynamic ways. They can help improve student motivation and help students achieve learning objectives.
We like to think of it a bit like the parents who hide the broccoli inside the tasty hamburger. A little bit of gameplay helps the medicine — or core curriculum — go down!
Games aren't just fun, after all. They have failure baked into them, along with repetition, and the chance to accomplish goals along the way. Playing games in a classroom fosters many of those social and emotional learning skills, even when the topic at hand comes from the science curriculum or is focused on an ELA standard.
Why Are Classroom Games Good for Kids?
We hinted at some of the benefits earlier, but let's dig deep into the benefits of playing educational games in your classroom!
- They motivate students.
- Students develop critical thinking skills.
- They're student-centered.
- They build teamwork and leadership skills.
- Games encourage creativity and thinking outside of the box.
- They encourage students to challenge themselves.
- They improve student concentration.
Learning Games Ideas
Good teachers can make just about any lesson fun, but maybe you're looking for learning game ideas to mix things up. We thought you'd never ask!
Check out a few of our teacher team's favorite (and fun) ways to inject gameplay into your students' education:
- Digital escape rooms
- Card games
- Dominoes
- Active games
- Scavenger hunts
- Would you rather? games
- Bingo
- Board games
How to Use Games in the Classroom
Looking for a few fun ways to use games in the classroom? Our teacher team has a few quick ideas for you to try on for size!
- Play active games to help students get their wiggles out.
- Add a board game to your reading center or math center activities.
- Use flashcard-type or trivia games for material review.
- Explore new concepts in fun ways with games like 20 questions.
- Help students get to know one another at the beginning of a school year with teamwork games.
- Explore difficult concepts with skills-based games.
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Moving Mathematics Activity - Fact Family Triangles
A fun mathematics activity that explores the inverse relationship between addition and subtraction.
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Google Slides Interactive - Prefixes Activity
Practice adding prefixes to words by identifying, defining, and matching them in context.
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Humpty Dumpty Worksheets - Character, Setting, and Story Elements
Identify characters, setting, and parts of a story with kindergarten reading worksheets featuring the Humpty Dumpty nursery rhyme.
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Order of Operations Board Game
Engage your students with a lively board game while using the order of operations to solve numerical expressions.
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Industrial Revolution Interactive Activity
Engage your students to display their knowledge about the inventions and effects of the Industrial Revolution with a digital interactive notebook.
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Prism Party! –Volume of Composite Rectangular Prisms – Google Slides Interactive Activity
Practice how to find the volume of composite figures with this interactive activity.
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Continents and Oceans Roll and Color Game
Learn to identify the continents and oceans of the world with a Continents and Oceans Roll and Color Game.
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Back to School Icebreaker - Put a Finger Down Classroom Introduction Activity
Kick off a new school year with a “Put a Finger Down” Getting to Know You classroom icebreaker.
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Feelings and Emotions Match-Up Activity
Help students to recognize and identify their feelings and emotions with this interactive match-up activity.
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Roll and Cover – Telling Time to the Minute
Practice telling to the minute with this roll and cover game
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Blending Phonemes Secret Message-Matching Activity
Blend phonemes to build words and uncover the secret message!
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Frog and Flies Match-Up Activity (Counting to 12)
Practice counting numbers 1 to 12 with this fun frog and fly match-up activity.
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Numbers 1-10 Bug Matching Game
Help students learn to represent numbers 1-10 in picture, word and number form.
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The Wacky Professor's Treasure - Mini Escape Room Activity
A mini escape room activity that allows students to complete grammar tasks, while working together to solve a riddle!
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Oblivious Orchestra – Rhythm Challenge
A fun and challenging game where students try to keep a steady beat.
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Memory Matcher PowerPoint – 3D Shapes
Recognize and recall the names of some of the most common 3D objects with a digital memory game!
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Order of Operations Dice Game
Practice order of operations with this set of 6 dice activity mats.
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Roll and Read – Sight Words – Kindergarten
A fun game for students to practice reading sight words.
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The Mini-Olympics – Class Game
A fun, Olympic-themed competition you can have with your class.
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Fact Family Find and Flip - One- and Two-Digit Addition and Subtraction
Addition and subtraction game cards demonstrating the relationship between fact families.
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Fact Family Find and Flip - Addition and Subtraction Up to 20
Addition and subtraction game cards demonstrating the relationship between fact families.
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Roll It, Make It, Expand It! - Place Value Worksheet
A worksheet for students to use when learning to write two-digit numbers in expanded form.
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Race to 10,000 - Number Pattern Game
A fun game for students to play to practice place value and mentally adding multiples of 10, 100, and 1,000.
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Software and Hardware Match-Up Game
A matching game to assist students in understanding the difference between hardware and software.
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Music Symbols and Vocabulary Match-up
Match up the music symbols with the related word.
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Human Rights Match-Up Activity
A match-up activity to consolidate the students' knowledge of how human rights affect their own lives.
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2-D Shape Bingo
Engage your students while consolidate learning about 2D shapes, their names and properties with 2D Shape Bingo!
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Compound Words Seek and Find Interactive
Seek and find examples of compound words with an engaging Google Slides Interactive activity.
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Compound Words Digital Learning Activity
Use a digital learning activity to help your students practice identifying, reading, and creating compound words.
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How to Make a Pizza Interactive Activity
Use this “How to Make a Pizza” procedural writing interactive activity to model the purpose, structural elements and language features of procedure texts.
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Roll and Write - Telling Time Dice Game
Practice telling time and have fun learning how to tell time with a Roll and Write Telling Time Dice Game!
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Animal Adaptations Digital Learning Activity Slides
Discover a variety of structural, behavioral, and physiological adaptations with an Animal Adaptations Digital Learning activity.