The virtual classroom may be starting to feel like a battleground at this point. Students' attention is fleeting at the best of times; without a rich roster of online classroom games, you may be fighting a losing battle for vital attention.
Well, the research says that students are more focused and motivated and learn more with all online classroom games. Below are the top 15 online classroom games which need virtually no prep time. So, let's check out those games to play effectively!
Table of Contents
Competitive Online Classroom Games
Competition is one of the great motivators in the classroom, just as much as in the virtual classroom. Here are 15 online classroom games that drive students to learn and stay focused...
#1 - Live Quiz
Best for Primary 🧒 High School 👩 and Adults 🎓
Back to the research. One survey in 2019 found that 88% of students recognise online classroom quiz games as both motivating and useful for learning. What's more, a staggering 100% of students said that quiz games help them to review what they've learned in class.
For many, a live quiz is the way to introduce fun and gamification into the classroom. They're completely suited to the virtual environment
How it works: Create or download a quiz on free, live quiz software. You present the quiz from your laptop, while students compete for the most points using their phones. Quizzes can be played individually or in teams.
Free Online Classroom Games to Play
Looking for interactive online games for students? Grab your ideal classroom quiz games for free from the AhaSlides quiz library. Change them however you want!
#2 - Balderdash
Best for Primary 🧒 High School 👩 and Adults 🎓
How it works: Present a target word to your class and ask them for the definition of it. After everyone has submitted their definition, ask them to vote on which submission they think is the best definition of the word.
- 1st place wins 5 points
- 2nd place wins 3 points
- 3rd place wins 2 points
After several rounds with different target words, tally the points to see who's the winner!
💡 Tip: You can set up anonymous voting so that certain students' levels of popularity doesn't sway the results!
#3 - Climb the Tree
Best for Kindergarten 👶
How it works: Split the class into 2 teams. On the board draw a tree for each team and a different animal on a separate piece of paper which is pinned next to the base of the tree.
Ask a question to the whole class. When a student answers it correctly, move their team's animal up the tree. The first animal to reach the top of the tree wins.
💡 Tip: Let students vote for their favourite animal. In my experience, this always leads to higher motivation from the class.
#4 - Spin the Wheel
Best for All Ages 🏫
AhaSlides online spinner wheel is hugely versatile tool and can be used for many types of online classroom games. Here are a few ideas:
- Pick a random student to answer a question.
- Pick a random question to ask the class.
- Pick a random category in which students name as much as they can.
- Give out a random number of points for a student's correct answer.
💡 Tip: One thing I've learned from teaching is that you're never too old for a spinner wheel! Don't assume that it's just for kids - you can use it for any aged student.
#5 - Bomb, Heart, Gun
Best for Primary 🧒 High School 👩 and Adults 🎓
A bit of a long explainer here, but this is one of the best online review games, so it's totally worth it! Once you've got the hang of it, actual preparation time is under 5 minutes - honestly.
How it works:
- Before you begin, create a grid table for yourself with either a heart, gun or bomb occupying each grid (on a 5×5 grid, this should be 12 hearts, 9 guns and 4 bombs).
- Present another grid table to your students (5×5 for 2 teams, 6×6 for 3 teams, etc.)
- Write a target word into each grid.
- Split players into the desired number of teams.
- Team 1 chooses a grid and says the meaning behind the word in it.
- If they’re wrong, they lose a heart. If they’re right, they get either a heart, gun or bomb, depending on what the grid corresponds to on your own grid table.
- A ❤️ grants the team an extra life.
- A 🔫 takes away one life from any other team.
- A 💣 takes away one heart from the team who got it.
- Repeat this with all teams. The team with the most hearts at the end is the winner!
💡 Tip: This is a wonderful online classroom game for ESL students, but make sure you explain the rules slowly!
#6 - Picture Zoom
Best for All Ages 🏫
How it works: Present the class with a picture that has been zoomed all the way in. Make sure to leave a few subtle details, as students will have to guess what the picture is.
Reveal the picture at the end to see who got it right. If you're using live quizzing software, you can automatically award points depending on the speed of the answer.
💡 Tip: This one's easy to do using software like AhaSlides. Simply upload a picture to the slide and zoom into it in the edit menu. Points are awarded automatically.
#7 - 2 Truths, 1 Lie
Best for High School 👩 and Adults 🎓
As well as being one of my favourite ice breaker activities for students (or even online interactive activities) and colleagues alike, 2 truths, 1 lie is a devil of a review game for online learning.
How it works: At the end of a lesson, get students (either solo or in teams) to come up with two facts that everyone had just learned in the lesson, as well as one lie that sounds like it could be true.
Each student reads out their two truths and one lie, after which each student votes for which they thought was the lie. Each student who correctly identified the lie gets a point, while the student who made up the lie gets one point for each person who voted incorrectly.
💡 Tip: This game might work best in teams, as it's not always easy for students who have their turn later to come up with a convincing lie. Grab more ideas to play 2 truths, 1 lie with AhaSlides!
#8 - Pointless
Best for High School 👩 and Adults 🎓
Pointless is a British TV game show that's completely adaptable to the world of online classroom games for Zoom. It rewards students for getting the most obscure answers possible.
How it works: On a free word cloud, you give all students a category and they try to write the most obscure (but correct) answer they can think of. The most popular words will appear the largest at the centre of the word cloud.
Once all the results are in, Start by deleting all the incorrect entries. Clicking the central (most popular) word deletes it and replaces it with the next most popular word. Keep deleting until you're left with one word, (or more than one if all words are equally sized).
#9 - Virtual Bingo
Best for Kindergarten 👶 and Primary 🧒
How it works: Using a free tool like My Free Bingo Cards, put a set of your target words into a bingo grid. Send the link out to your class, who click on it to each receive a randomised virtual bingo card containing your target words.
Read out the definition of a target word. If that definition matches a target word on a student's virtual bingo card, they can click the word to cross it out. The first student to cross out the target words is the winner!
💡 Tip: This is a great virtual class game for kindergarteners as long as you keep it as simple as possible. Just read out a word and let them cross it out.
Creative Online Classroom Games
Creativity in the classroom (at least in my classroom) took a nosedive when we moved to teaching online. Creativity plays such an integral part in effective learning; try these online classroom games to bring back the spark...
#10 - Draw a Monster
Best for Kindergarten 👶 and Primary 🧒
How it works: Using a collaborative online whiteboard like Excalidraw, invite each student to draw a monster. The monster must feature target words from your lesson in a number that is determined by a dice roll.
For example, if you're teaching shapes, then you can set triangle, circle and diamond as your target words. Roll the dice for each to determine how many of each has to feature in each student's monster (5 triangles, 3 circles, 1 diamond).
💡 Tip: Keep engagement high by letting students roll the dice and naming their monster at the end.
#11 - Build a Story
Best for High School 🧒 and Adults 🎓
This one's a good virtual icebreaker as it encourages creative thinking early on in a lesson.
How it works: Start by creating the opening to a whimsical story that's one sentence long. Pass that story onto a student, who continues it with a sentence of their own, before passing it on.
Write down each story addition so as not to lose track. Eventually, you'll have a class-created story to be proud of!
#12 - Charades
Best for Kindergarten 👶 and Primary 🧒
How it works: Like Pictionary, this virtual classroom game is an evergreen sensation. It's one of the easiest games to adapt from the offline to the online classroom, as it requires basically no materials.
Create a list of target words that are easy enough to demonstrate through actions. Choose a word and perform the action, then see which student gets it.
💡 Tip: This is one your students can definitely get involved in. Give each student a word in private and see if they can perform an action that clearly demonstrates the target word.
#13 - Bring the House Down
Best for High School 🧒 and Adults 🎓
How it works: Create a few scenarios based on the things you covered in the lesson. Split students into teams of 3 or 4, then give each team a scenario. Send those students into breakout rooms together so they can plot their performance using household objects as props.
After 10 - 15 minutes of preparation, call all teams back to perform their scenario using household objects. Optionally, all students can take a vote at the end for the most creative, funny, or accurate performance.
💡 Tip: Keep scenarios open so that there's room for students to be creative. Always encourage creativity in online classroom games like these!
#14 - What Would You Do?
Best for High School 🧒 and Adults 🎓
Another one open to students' inbuilt sense of creativity. What Would You Do? is all about letting imagination run free.
How it works: Make up a scenario from your lesson. Ask students what they would do in that scenario, and tell them there are no particular rules for their answer.
Using a brainstorming tool, everyone writes down their idea and takes a vote on which is the most creative solution.
💡 Tip: Add another layer of creativity by getting students to submit their ideas through the perspective of someone you've just been learning about. Topics and people don't have to go well together. For example, "How would Stalin deal with climate change?".
#15 - Pictionary
Best for Kindergarten 👶 and Primary 🧒
How it works: Of all online classroom games here, this one probably needs as much introduction as it does prep. Simply start drawing a target word on your virtual whiteboard and have students guess what it is. The first student to guess it correctly gets a point.
Find out more about different ways to play Pictionary over Zoom.
💡 Tip: If your students are tech-savvy enough, it's much better to give each of them a word and have them draw it out.
