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
Rolling for Cash — Printable Counting Coins Game
Print a customizable money game for kids that requires addition and skip counting skills to count coins.
- Plus Plan
Elapsed Time Interactive Word Problems Game
Practice solving elapsed time word problems with an interactive quiz game for 3rd and 4th graders.
- Plus Plan
3rd Grade - Time to the Minute Quiz Game
Practice telling time to the minute with an engaging 3rd Grade Telling Time Quiz Game.
- Free Plan
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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Food Chains - Interactive Activity
Review producers, consumers and decomposers in food chains with this interactive digital quiz.
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Moving Mathematics Activity - Fact Family Triangles
A fun mathematics activity that explores the inverse relationship between addition and subtraction.
- Free Plan
Lab Equipment Vocabulary – Match-Up Activity
Identify different types of science tools by matching vocabulary terms, pictures, and definitions.
- Plus Plan
Array Races Multiplication Game – Facts 2, 3, 5, and 10
Create arrays to fill the board with this fun multiplication game.
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Numerical Expressions Match-Up
Evaluate numerical expressions and find corresponding mathematical phrases with this match-up activity.
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Then and Now Match-Up Activity
Start a great discussion and show students how technology and society have changed over the years by matching historical images with their modern counterparts.
- Free Plan
I Have, Who Has? - Time to the Minute
Practice telling time to the nearest minute with this set of “I Have, Who Has” game cards.
- Free Plan
Battleship Coordinate Grid Game
Practice using ordered pairs with this fun battleship game.
- Free Plan
Alphabetical Order Activity
A fun matchup activity to help teach children the letters of the alphabet and their sounds.
- Plus Plan
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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Hunt & Find - Telling Time Clock Game
Tell time to the nearest minute with a Tell the Time Clock Game for 3rd graders.
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Long Vowel O Teams Interactive Activity
Practice identifying the different graphemes that spell the long /o/ sound with this fun boat-themed interactive activity.
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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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Line Plot Bakery Interactive Activity
Assign this bakery-themed interactive activity to your students to build their understanding of analyisng and creating line plots.
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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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What Would You Do? Empathy Board Game
Challenge your students to think about the feelings of others and how to appropriately respond with the empathy board game.
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Let's Look at Self Esteem Interactive Activity
Boost your students' self-esteem with this fun and engaging interactive activity.
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Area of a Triangle Matching Activity for 6th Grade
Calculate the area of triangle figures and match them with their corresponding areas with this match-up activity.
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5th Grade Math Review – Google Slides Interactive Activity
Review important 5th-grade math standards with a student-led interactive activity that covers 12 different mathematical concepts.
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The Great Depression - Instructional Slide Deck
Engage your students and help them discover what life was like during the Great Depression with an engaging instructional slide deck.
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Up, Up, & Away! Volume of Rectangular Prisms – Google Slides Interactive Activity
Practice calculating the volume of rectangular prisms with this Google Slides interactive activity.
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The Escape From Millbrook Manor – Halloween Escape Room
Practice computation skills by solving puzzles with this differentiated Halloween escape room game.
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Tens Frame - Addition and Subtraction Match-Up Activity
Build addition and subtraction skills with two tens frame matching games.
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Which Is Longer? – Interactive PowerPoint
An interactive PowerPoint quiz that asks students to compare the length and height of various everyday objects.
- Free Plan
Fishing to Know You
Get to know your new class at the beginning of the year with this Fishing to Know You activity.
- Free Plan
Roll and Read – Sight Words – Grade 1
A fun game for students to practice reading sight words.
- Free Plan
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.
- Free Plan
Vocabulary Dice Roll Activity
6 vocabulary activities to use with a range of words.