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.
- Free Plan
Ugly Christmas Sweater - Dice Drawing Game
Roll your way to the perfect ugly Christmas sweater with a printable Christmas dice game.
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Roll to Create a Gingerbread House
Have some Christmas fun without the mess with a Roll-to-Create Gingerbread House Art activity.
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Roll to Create a Creature - Drawing Game
Use a die and a chart to create a creature to include in a narrative text or a comic strip.
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Save Santa's Workshop – Escape Room for Kids
A fun and festive escape room activity where students solve clues to save Santa's Workshop.
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Christmas Trivia Advent Calendar Interactive
Host a Christmas trivia game show with an interactive advent calendar trivia game.
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Holiday Code Cracker: Middle Years – Whole Class Holiday Game
A whole class, holiday-themed game where students work together to find a secret code.
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Halloween Escape Room - The Missing Treat Mystery - Multiplication and Division Facts
Solve the mystery of who stole all the treats from the Halloween Party with an interactive Halloween Escape Room featuring multiplication and division.
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The Elf Investigation – Whole Class Escape Game
Engage and excite your upper elementary students with an exciting Christmas escape room mystery.
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Consonant Digraph Roll Game (Green)
A phonics game played in pairs and focusing on the following digraphs: ge, ck, kn, ng, wr, and wh.
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Christmas Writing Prompt Dice Game - Roll-a-Story
Roll a Christmas Writing Prompt and write a fun Christmas story with our printable Christmas Dice activities.
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Roll It! Operations Game
Use this fun game to practice all four operations and/or order of operations.
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Digraph Coding Robot Mat
Practice identifying digraphs with the help of a coding robot and mat.
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Thanksgiving Would You Rather? Game
Engage your students in thoughtful and hilarious discussions in an engaging, interactive game of Thanksgiving Would You Rather?
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Elf Escape! - Digital Escape Room
Help Elfy, the classroom Elf escape the locked classroom and return to the North Pole with an exciting escape room!
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Google Slides Interactive- Past, Present, and Future Verbs Activity
Develop student skills using the correct forms of past, present, and future tense verbs with this Google Slides Interactive activity.
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Roll to Create a Christmas Story - Writing Prompt
Roll the die to generate a fun Christmas writing activity with a roll-to-create Christmas worksheet.
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Escape From the Alien Invasion – Math Escape Room (Basic Fractions)
Save the planet from the alien invasion by identifying fractions, comparing fractions, creating models, and more with an exciting digital escape room.
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Group It Many Ways – Multiplication Activity
Promote hands-on learning with this activity, where students will practice making equal groups to represent multiplication.
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Subtraction Game - 2-Digit Subtraction Dominoes
Use this printable set of double-digit subtraction dominoes to practice a variety of subtraction strategies.
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The Case of the Missing Turkey! - Thanksgiving Escape
Uncover the location of the missing Thanksgiving turkey with a 4th-grade multiplication Thanksgiving Mystery escape room activity.
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Roll to Create an Elf - Drawing Activity
Use a die and directed drawings to create a unique elf drawing for Christmas!
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How to Decorate a Christmas Tree - Year 1 Procedural Writing
Practice sequencing and writing procedural texts with an interactive ‘How to Decorate a Christmas Tree’ slide deck and differentiated writing prompts for 1st grade.
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Holiday Code Cracker: Upper Years – Whole Class Holiday Game
A whole class, holiday-themed game where students work together to find a secret code.
- Free Plan
Last One Standing Active Game
An active game that allows students to build their vocabulary knowledge.
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Roll and Write - Simple and Compound Sentences
Practice writing simple and compound sentences with our Roll and Write activity.
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Drama Game Task Cards
A set of 17 activity cards with instructions for drama games.
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Number Line Multiplication – Interactive Picture Reveal for 3rd Grade
Engage your students with this interactive multiplication game while learning how to multiply on a number line.
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Christmas Math Worksheets - Roll, Add and Color Addition
Roll, add, and color your way to Christmas with a pack of fun Kindergarten math worksheets.
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Weathering vs. Erosion vs. Deposition Vocabulary Game
Guide your students to review weathering, erosion and deposition vocabulary words with this free dice game.
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Roll to 100 Odd and Even Game
Create a fun math station with this roll to 100 game where students show their knowledge of odd and even numbers up to 100.
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Roll to Create a Haunted House Halloween Activity
Have some spooky Halloween fun with a Roll-to-Create Halloween Art activity.
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Christmas Code Breaker Puzzle - Whole-Class Activity
A whole-class Christmas Codebreaker Puzzle activity.