17+ Low-Prep Fun Games to Play in Class for All Grades (Updated in 2024!)

Students, regardless of age, all have one in common: they have short attention spans and can't sit around learning for long. Just 30 minutes into the lecture you will find them fidgeting, staring blankly at the ceiling, or asking trivial questions.

To keep students’ interests high and to avoid textbooks like your kids avoid vegetables, check out these fun games to play in class with your students. They are versatile, work great for both online and offline learning, and don’t require much effort to set up.

5 Benefits of Interactive Classroom Games

Whether it's online or offline, there is value in having a round of fun classroom games. Here are the five benefits of why you should incorporate games more than often in your lesson:

• Attentiveness: definitely would raise up with fun games in school, a handful of fun greatly increases students' focus, according to a study by researchers at the University of Wisconsin. It's no hard science to see that your students are indulged in playing games in class since fun classroom games are often upbeat and require a great amount of attention in order to win.
• Motivation: more than a dozen times, students often look forward to a lesson or a class if it includes a fun game. And if they feel motivated, they can even overcome the hardest learning obstacles👏
• Collaboration: by participating in classroom games as pairs or in teams, your students will eventually learn to cooperate with others and work in harmony as there are no rights or wrongs, only achievable goals at the end of the route.
• Affection: playing games is a great way to form special bonds with your students. They will think you are the "cool teacher" who knows how to build a welcoming environment and have fun apart from teaching dry topics.
• Learning reinforcement: the prime purpose of classroom games is for the students to learn using non-traditional education methods. By putting hard knowledge into something enjoyable, your students will sprout positive memories of the learning process, which are much easier to recall during exams.

17+ Fun Games For Students

Games for Online Classrooms

Battling through the silent void during virtual lessons is not a walk in the park. Luckily, there is more than only one remedy to battle this epidemic. Revive the class atmosphere and leave the brightest smiles on your students' faces with this engagement first aid kit.

Check out the full list 👉 15 online classroom games for every age.

#1 - Live Quiz

Gamified quizzes are trustful sidekicks to a teacher's lesson review. They help students, regarding of age and space, retain the lesson learned and fire up their competitive spirit, which the traditional pen-and-paper method cannot accomplish. 

There are tons of interactive online quizzes for you to try: Kahoot, Quizizz, AhaSlides, Quizlet, etc., but we recommend AhaSlides with a nice toasty free plan that lets you create a lesson quiz in less than 30 seconds (with the help of AI assistant for free!)

#2 - Charades

Whether online or offline, Charades is a fun physical game to satisfy your students' urges to move around when stuck behind a computer screen.

You can let the students work in teams or pairs. The students will be given a word or phrase to demonstrate through actions, and their teammates will need to guess the correct word/phrase based on that description.

#3 - Time to Climb

Definitely, a game to play when bored at school! Elementary students absolutely love this game, especially the younger ones. We've had a couple of teachers sharing that their pupils beg them to play Time to Climb during class, and if you take a look through the game's guide, you will see it's the complete package and total eye candy for youngsters 🍭

The game will transform your standard multiple-choice quiz into an interactive game, where the students can choose their characters and advance to the top of the mountain with the fastest correct answer.

Games for ESL Students

Learning a second language requires double energy to convert words and meanings, which might be why your class just sit there frozen in time. Worry not because with these ESL classroom ice-breakers, "timid" or "shy" will not be in your students' dictionary 😉.

Here's the full list 👉12 Exciting ESL classroom games.

#4 - Baamboozle

Teaching Gen Alpha kids language is like playing astronaut simulation on hard more. Growing up with YouTube as a bestie can seriously make them lose focus within 5 minutes so here's my lesson - anything that's repetitive won't work. The remedy? A nice, handy platform like Baamboozle with a whooping 2 million games (their claim not mine!) in their library might work.

You simply select a pre-made game or create a custom game based on the learning topic, and divide your students into teams (often 2). They will take turns selecting a number or question from the game board.

#5 - Tell Me Five

This is a simple vocabulary review game in which you can devise your own rules. In class, divide your students into groups and give each group a category (e.g. pizza toppings). They will have to come up with five things belonging to that category in 20 seconds (e.g. pizza toppings: cheese, mushroom, ham, bacon, corn) on the board. 

For a virtual class, let the students write five things from the category on a whiteboard tool. The fastest among them is the winner!

#6 - Show and Tell

It's great that your students can incorporate refined words in their writing, but can they do the same when speaking?

In Show and Tell, you give students a topic to work on, such as their favourite snack. Each person will have to bring an item that matches the topic and tell a story or a memory involving that object.

To add more spice to the game, you can let the students vote and compete for different prizes, such as the best story-teller, best story plot, most hilarious story, etc.

#7 - Word Chain

Test your students' word bank with this simplistic, zero-preparation game.

First, come up with a word, such as 'bee', then throw a ball to a student; they will think of another word that starts with the last letter, "e", such as "emerald". They'll continue the word chain around the class until someone cannot shout the next word fast enough, and then they'll restart without that player.

For a more advanced level, you could prepare a theme and ask students to say words that belong to that category only. For example, if your theme is "animal" and the first word is "dog", the players should follow up with animal words like "goat" or "goose". Keep the category broad, otherwise, this quick classroom game gets really hard!

#8 - Word Jumble Race

Word Jumble Race is perfect for practising tenses, word order, and grammar.

It's pretty simple. Prepare by cutting up sentences into a handful of words, then split your class into small groups and give them a batch of words each. When you say "GO!", each group will race to put the words in the correct order.

You can print out the sentences to use in class or shuffle the words effortlessly using an online quiz creator.

Here's how it works

1. Sign up for AhaSlides (free), create a presentation and choose the "Correct Order" slide.
2. Add the words of a sentence. Each one will be shuffled randomly for your players.
3. Set the time limit.
4. Present to your students.
5. They all join on their phones and race to sort the words the fastest!

There are many other activities that can improve your students' retention and attention span, not just games.
👉 Find out more interactive school presentation ideas.

Vocabulary Classroom Games

While similar to ESL classroom games, these vocabulary games focus more on mastering individual words rather than sentence structure. Designed to be non-threatening, they're a great way to boost student confidence and energy levels in the classroom.

Here's the full list 👉 10 fun vocabulary games for the classroom

#9 - Pictionary

Time to let their students practice their doodling skills.

Playing Pictionary in class is super simple. You assign one to read the word you've prepared and they will have to sketch it quickly in 20 seconds. When time's left, others will have to guess what it is based on the doodle.

You can let them play in teams or individually, and increase the challenge according to the level of the students. To play Pictionary online, make sure to either utilise the Zoom whiteboard or one of the many great Pictionary-type free apps out there.

#10 - Word Scramble

Nothing is more enjoyable than unscrambling the words and figuring out what they might be. You can make some Word Scramble worksheets ready with different themes such as animals, festivals, stationary, etc. and roll them out during class. The first student who successfully decodes all the words will be the winner.

#11 - Guess the Secret Word

How can you help the students to memorise new words? Try the word association game, Guess the Secret Word.

First, think of a word, then tell the students some words associated with that. They will have to use their existing vocabulary to try guessing the word you're thinking of.

For example, if the secret word is "peach", you could say "pink". Then they might guess something like "flamingo" and you will tell them it's not related. But when they say words like "guava", you can tell them that it is associated with the secret word.

Free Quiz Templates!

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Improve learning and retention rate with a live quiz, free to use in AhaSlides.

General Knowledge

Name that Song

English Quiz

#12 - Stop the Bus

This is another great vocabulary revision game. Start by preparing some categories or topics that contain the target vocabulary your students have been learning, such as verbs, clothing, transportation, colours, etc. Then, choose a letter from the alphabet.

Your class, which should be divided into teams, will have to write each word as quickly as possible from each category that begins with that specific letter. When they complete all lines, they will have to shout "Stop the bus!".

For example, there are three categories: clothing, countries, and cakes. The letter you choose is "C". The students will need to come up with something like this:

• Corset (clothing)
• Canada (countries)
• Cupcake (cakes)

Classroom Board Games

Boardgames make great classroom staples. They increase students' collaboration and vocabulary skills by means of fruitful competition. Here are some quick games to play with students in class. They are versatile and good to use with any age group.

#13 - Hedbanz

Taken from the family classic board game, Hedbanz is an atmosphere raiser and is super easy to play.

Print out some cards that belong to the animal, food, or object category, then stick them onto your students' foreheads. They will have to ask "Yes" or "No" questions to figure out what the cards are before the time runs out. Playing in pairs is optimal for Hedbanz.

#14 - Boggle

On a jumbled grid of 16 letters, the goal of Boggle is to find as many words as possible. Up, down, left, right, diagonal, how many words your students can come up with on the grid?

There are many free Boggle templates online for distance learning and physical classrooms. Stack up some and give them out to your students as a pleasant surprise at the end of the class.

#15 - Apples to Apples

Excellent for students' vocabulary development, Apples to Apples is a hilarious board game to add to your classroom collection. There are two types of cards: Things (which generally feature a noun) and Descriptions (which contain an adjective).

As a teacher, you can be the judge and pick the Description card. The students will try to pick, from the seven cards in their hands, the Thing they feel that best matches that description. If you like that comparison, they can keep the Description card. The winner is the one who collects the most Description cards in the game.

Classroom Math Games

Has learning maths ever been fun? We dare to say YES because with these short but mighty maths games, your students will so be adding math to their all-time favourite subject list. It's also scientifically proven that lessons built around game-based activities generate more maths enthusiasts. Probability games are also one of the fun options for students of all grades. Check it out!

Here's the full list 👉10 best maths video games for bored K12 students

#16 - Would You Rather

Would you rather buy packages of 12 cookies for $3 each or packages of 10 cookies for $2.60 each?

Not sure what answer your students will choose, but we do love cookies 🥰️ In the standard edition of Would You Rather, students are given a scenario with two choices. They will have to choose which option they'll go for and justify it using logical reasoning.

In the maths edition, all students play at the same time and race to choose the best deal out of the two options.

The game can be played both online and offline as a quick icebreaker or lesson-ender.

#17 - 101 and out

Ever worry that your maths lessons end on a bit of a dull note? How about initiating a few rounds of 101 and out, a fun activity for class in which the goal is to score as close to the number 101 as possible without going over. Divide your class into groups, and have a spinner wheel representing a dice (yes we figure not every class has a couple of dice ready).

Each group will take turns spinning the wheel, and they can either count the number at face value or multiply it by 10. For example, if they roll a five, they can choose to keep that number or turn it into 50 to quickly get to 101.

For older students, try giving an awkward multiply number, such as 7, to make decisions more difficult.

💡 Want more Spinner wheel games like this? We've got a free interactive template for you! Just find 'class spinner wheel games' in the template library.

#18 - Guess My Number

From 1 to 100, which number is on my mind? In Guess My Number, students will have to guess what the number you are thinking of. It is a good math game to practise everyone's logical thinking. They can ask questions such as "Is it an odd number?", "Is it in the nineties?", "Is it a multiple of 5?", and you can only answer "Yes" or "No" without giving any other clues.

💡Besides fun games, you can also explore these interactive presentation ideas for students and discover how to make learning fun, interactive, and unforgettable.

Interactive Tips In Classrooms

These activities, perfect for students of all ages (from kindergarten to university!), will boost confidence and energy levels while mastering classroom lessons. But wait, there's more! We've got a treasure trove of super fun tips and class activities to keep your lessons dynamic and engaging below:

• How to make a Zoom quiz
• Games to play on Zoom with students
• Online quiz for students
• Quick games to play in the classroom
• Educational games for kids
• Physical games for preschoolers

Frequently Asked Questions