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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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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3rd Grade - Time to the Minute Quiz Game
Practice telling time to the minute with an engaging 3rd Grade Telling Time Quiz Game.
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Array Match-Up Activity for 3rd Grade
Challenge your students to create sets of arrays, multiplication facts and products with this matching game for 3rd grade.
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Our Solar System - Interactive and Printable Cloze Reading Activity
Practice and review concepts associated with the solar system using a cloze passage.
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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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Let's Research! Digital and Print Poster Project Templates
Conduct, organize, and display research about books, people, planets, animals, states, and countries with a versatile set of printable and digital poster templates.
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Brain Break Activity Cards
Give your students a quick brain break with this set of 19 whole-class games.
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What's Remaining? - Long Division Board Game
A game to play to when learning to solve long division involving remainders.
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Vocabulary Dice Roll Activity
6 vocabulary activities to use with a range of words.
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Planets Escape Room Activity
Navigate facts about different planets with this fun and engaging escape room style activity with your students.
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Multiplication as Repeated Addition – Interactive Picture Reveal
Help your students understand the relationship between repeated addition and multiplication with this interactive picture reveal.
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Equal Groups Multiplication Activity
Engage your students with a hands-on activity to practice making equal groups to represent multiplication.
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Addition and Subtraction Word Problems - Match Game
Practice reading, modeling, and solving addition and subtraction word problems with a matching activity.
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Prefix, Suffix, and Root Word Bingo
Examine prefixes, suffixes, and root words and identify their morphological meanings in this BINGO game.
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Spring "Numberpillars" — Kindergarten Math Center Activity
Match numbers 1-10 with their various visual representations to build a fun mathematical caterpillar!
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Graphing Numerical Equations – Google Slides Interactive Activity
Recognize and analyze patterns in graphs, input-output tables, and equations with this interactive activity.
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Short Vowels or BUST! Card Game
This phonological awareness activity awards points for correctly identifying the words with short vowel sounds.
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Multiplying with Decimals Bingo Game
Get your students multiplying decimals by whole numbers with this engaging Bingo game.
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Compound Words I Have, Who Has? Game
Play a whole-class game to review common compound words and their meanings.
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Elapsed Time Interactive Word Problems Game
Practice solving elapsed time word problems with an interactive quiz game for 3rd and 4th graders.
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What Does the Clock Say? - Telling Time Game
Solve the math riddles to find the clocks that show the correct time with a fun Time to 5 Minute Telling Time Game.
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What Are Behavioral Adaptations? Digital Interactive Notebook
Discover behavioral adaptations of animals with an independent research-based Behavioral Adaptation Digital Learning Notebook.
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Rhetorical Questions Interactive Activity
Explore rhetorical questions with your students using this digital game perfect for your persuasive writing lessons.
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Long E Vowel Teams Interactive Activity
Practice identifying the different graphemes that spell the long /e/ vowel teams with this fun space-themed interactive activity.
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Analyzing Line Plots Interactive Activity
Dive into data with your class using this engaging Analyzing Line Plots Interactive Activity!
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The Case of the Missing Football – Estimating Products Escape Activity for 4th Grade
Uncover the identity of the thief who stole the football with a printable estimating products escape room activity.
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Roll and Round Dice Game
Help your student refine their rounding skills with this set of 7 printable math games.
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Finding the Main Idea in Fiction Texts Interactive Activity
Help your students easily find the main idea and support details in a fiction text with this interactive activity.
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Frog Hop Suffixes - Interactive Grammar Review
Review knowledge of suffixes with a fun frog-themed Google Slides Interactive review activity.
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Lab Safety – Interactive and Printable Cloze Reading Activity
Demonstrate an understanding of lab safety rules and expectations by completing a cloze reading activity.
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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.