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Rigorous academic standards keep school days filled with direct instruction, small group and center work, and independent practice. We want our kids to have as many opportunities to be successful as possible, and we jam pack the days of school to maximize learning time. We also know that the days of kids sitting still and listening all day are long gone, and we know how beneficial movement and interaction is for learning.
Academic games are rule-based competitive activities that are linked directly to content that is being taught. Games give students a chance to interact with their peers and grapple with new knowledge in a fun and safe learning environment. Played across any content area, games can challenge students to use higher level thinking and problem solving skills to tackle new concepts, while having so much fun they don’t even realize they’re learning!
Research shows that academic games have several benefits for student learning outcomes. They have been shown to improve motivation and engagement, provide opportunities for communication and collaboration, and reduce the stress and anxiety around learning new concepts–all while improving critical thinking skills and academic achievement.
Kids love to play games, and there are so many ways to incorporate them into the classroom.
Puzzles are a popular and easy starting point when looking for fun challenges to bring into your classroom. And we don’t mean jigsaw puzzles—although those can be fun too, especially when you use a thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle as a compelling side-project for a class. Puzzles, especially logic and word puzzles, have many cognitive benefits including improved memory, problem solving, brain cell connections, and mental speed.
Depending on the ages and ability levels of the students in your classroom, any combination of these puzzles can be used in almost any content area. Math puzzles can be used for practicing new concepts, and word and vocabulary puzzles can be used not only in language arts, but in social studies and science as well. Puzzles can be used as an independent practice activity, or used in small group peer learning with the added benefit of students working together to solve them!
When you first hear the word quiz, you might initially think of a silent classroom with students studiously working independently to show their mastery of knowledge. But quizzes can be interactive and fun! Quizzes can be used as a review game before an assessment, as an exit criteria in the form of a formative assessment, or just for fun!
There are lots of interactive online platforms that have pre-made quizzes you can customize to fit your own classroom content.
Some of these websites include:
When you gamify quizzes, you’ll see engagement skyrocket. Adding the element of a leaderboard or some kind of rewards system helps to motivate your competitive students, and makes the quizzes that much more fun.
There are so many board games out there, ready to go out of the box, that can help supplement your instruction and get your students interacting with content. Games like Math Dice help students improve their mental math capabilities, while Scrambled States of America build basic geography knowledge. These and others can be purchased and used as is.
Board games don’t have to be an added expense to your classroom supply budget. A used board game drive at the beginning or end of a school year gives families a much needed chance to clean off their shelves, while simultaneously stacking yours!
You can also get creative and adapt board games to meet the needs of your students and the curriculum that you teach. A few ideas to get you started:
In addition to board games, consider role-playing games. They don’t cost a thing, and students can practice communication and social skills while simulating different real world or historical scenarios to deepen their understanding of new content. For example, younger kids love charades, while older kids might benefit from reenacting a historical event, or participating in mock interviews.
No matter how many academic games you are able to incorporate into the curriculum you use in your classroom, you can always implement weekly or monthly academic challenges that aren’t directly tied to a game, but still motivate your students with a little bit of competition.
Add in a weekly math problem solving challenge with a difficult question that might take some critical thinking and collaboration to figure out. Create a Jeopardy game that your whole class can play with your spelling or vocabulary words. Play a round of Scattergories with your current unit content. Tackle a subject that might have some opposing viewpoints and teach your students debate and public speaking skills.
Any chance you have to get students interacting with each other and with new content, you are offering them a chance to maximize their learning and cement new knowledge. The most interactive academic learning experiences are the most memorable for students, and leave a pretty beneficial impact on learning.
While screen free games are really beneficial for building socialization and communication skills, there is still a time and place for educational games that are found on screens. There are an infinite number of educational games apps and games out there, some free and some for purchase, that can be used to supplement instruction, especially for independent practice.
There are even apps out there that offer online simulations for virtual field trips, where students can experience visiting historical sites or exploring different ecosystems. If your school has access to virtual reality headsets, these experiences can be especially immersive and fun for students.
If you work in STEAM, there are so many online coding games that promote computational thinking and problem solving skills. Kids love the social elements of websites like Scratch, where they can create things using code, and then share their creations with their peers. Games like Kodable, Code Monkey, and even Minecraft all get even our youngest students familiar with coding.
–and overall just a lot of fun!
If adding games into your classroom feels overwhelming, start small! Find a small chunk of time in your day that you might be able to try one, and start with one that doesn’t require significant prep work. As you get more comfortable, you’ll find that the benefits far outweigh the adaptation to your lesson plan.
What academic games do you play in your classroom? Tell us about your experiences in the comments and share your favorite classroom game!
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