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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Array Card Kaboom!
Boost your students’ understanding of arrays and multiplication with this engaging Kaboom card game.
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I Have Who Has Expanded Form Game
Explore numbers up to 6-digits with this fun whole class place value game of 'I have, Who Has?'
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Push or Pull? Interactive Sorting Activity
Explore push and pull forces with your students by playing this interactive sorting game for lower elementary students.
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Decomposing 3-Digit Numbers Matching Activity
Help children decompose 3-digit numbers by identifying the place value of hundreds, tens, and ones with this matching activity.
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Writing Numbers in Expanded Form Board Game
Help students practice writing numbers in expanded form with this fun and engaging gameboard and cards.
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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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Environmental Factors That Affect Plants and Animals – Interactive Activity
Help your students learn about how environmental factors such as the weather affect plants and animals using this engaging and informative interactive activity.
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Data Collection Interactive Activity
Check your students’ understanding of interpreting data and using it to create graphs using this fun and colorful interactive game.
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2-Digit and 3-Digit Expanded Form Interactive Activity
Use this interactive activity with your students to practice expanded form through to the hundreds place.
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Uses of Soil Interactive Activity
Teach students how soil is used by animals, plants and humans with this interactive science game for Kindergarten students.
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Estimating Sums & Differences Interactive Picture Reveal
Send your students on an intergalactic math adventure while practicing how to estimate sums and differences of whole numbers.
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Showing Empathy Interactive Activity
Encourage your students to identify acts of empathy and determine the right thing to do in a given situation with an interactive activity designed for 1st and 2nd-grade students.
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Estimating Decimal Sums and Differences Interactive Activity
Take your students on a safari adventure while practicing how to estimate decimal sums and differences with this interactive activity.
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Weathering, Erosion and Deposition Matching Game
Challenge your students to identify different slow changes to Earth’s surface with this matching game designed for 4th and 5th-grade students.
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Conjunctive Adverb Interactive Activity
Use this engaging interactive activity in your classroom to teach students what conjunctive adverbs are and how to use them in their writing.
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Self-Esteem Builder Board Game
Explore how to build self-esteem with your students using this fun self-esteem game board.
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Halloween Interactive Assessment- Round to Three Decimal Places
Scare up some new assessment data when your student's round decimals to the nearest tenth, hundredth, and thousandth with a Halloween-themed rounding decimals quiz.
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Positive Self Talk Match-Up
Teach your students how positive self talk in challenging situations can boost self-esteem with this match up activity.
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Red Ribbon Week Activity - Digital Centers
Save time writing your Red Ribbon Week Lesson plans with a Digital drug awareness activity for first grade.
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Proud to be Me Scoot Game
Engage students in identifying and describing personal identity while also promoting discussion with this active activity.
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Escape from Stress Board Game
Introduce this board game in your classroom to help students practice identifying which stress management coping strategies to use and when.
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Adverb Whole Class Game
Teach your students how to use adverbs to add detail in simple sentences with this fun whole-class game!
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Relative Adverbs Interactive Activity
Use this relative adverbs interactive activity as a warm up for your grammar lesson or to refresh students’ memories before a writing session!
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Relative Adverb Scoot Game
Use this relative adverbs scoot game as a warm up or active learning activity to add some color to your grammar lesson!
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Relative Adverbs Game
Incorporate this relative adverbs board game into your literacy rotations or as a fast finisher activity to reinforce the concept of relative adverbs.
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Race Car Rounding With Decimals Interactive Activity for 5th Grade
Rev up your math engines and take the rounding decimals race! Download this interactive Google Slides activity and challenge your students to become a decimal rounding champion!
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Characteristics of Seasons Interactive Activity
Use this activity-packed interactive resource to explore with your students the names and characteristics of summer, autumn, winter and spring!
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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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Spooky Subtraction - 3rd Grade Halloween Math Game
Practice triple-digit subtraction with regrouping with an exciting 3rd Grade Halloween Math Game.
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1st Grade Halloween Addition Game - Roll-a-Potion
Roll and add to create a magic potion, then draw it in the cauldron with a printable Halloween game.
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Healthy or Hurtful? Interactive Drug Awareness Game
Encourage students to make healthy choices with a Red Ribbon Week “Healthy or Hurtful” interactive game.
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Red Ribbon Week Game- Smart Choices Interactive
Review Red Ribbon Week ideas with an interactive game for students to learn to make smart choices regarding drugs and alcohol.