Extracurricular Games and Activities
There are many things that can create pockets of unexpected time in your classroom. Maybe it’s a fire drill that disrupts your math class, leaving you with an awkward ten minutes to fill and students that are too hyped up to think about fractions again. Maybe your history lesson didn’t take nearly as long as you expected. Maybe it’s the fourth rainy day in a row, and you’re stuck inside at recess and desperately in need of something new and fun. Maybe it’s near the end of the school year and you’re running out of things to do. Maybe everyone finished their unit test early and you have fifteen minutes of extra class time.
In moments like these, teachers often have their reflexive fallback options, like extra recess or silent reading. But not every student enjoys extra recess, and not every student thrives on reading. Instead, having some in-classroom games can be an opportunity for creative and rapport-building experiences.
I recently saw a post by a teacher who has what she calls a “Change of Plans Box,” which is basically a box of games and activities to fall back on regardless of the day’s surprises (credit to Amy B. on WeAreTeachers). The idea is that a teacher would put a bit of time into preparing these activities beforehand so that they are ready to go at a moment’s notice.
Here are a few activities you might consider if you want to build your own Change of Plans Box (some of them take a bit of prep, and some of them take no prep at all!)
Ideas for Any Age
The Counting Game
The aim of the game is for students to work together to count aloud from 1-20, with only one student saying a number at a time. The catch is that they may not communicate first to determine an order of who speaks when. If two students speak at the same time, they must start over again from 1.
Twenty Questions
This game is a classic for a reason. The teacher chooses a word, whether a person, place, or thing (for younger students you might want to make it easier by telling them the general category first). Students then work together to guess the item by only asking yes/no questions. As the name implies, the aim of the game is to guess the word within twenty questions.
Apple Pie
The teacher chooses one student to come to the front of the room and stand with their back to the class. The teacher then silently chooses another student to say, “apple pie.” The student at the front needs to guess who spoke. Students can try to make it tricky by disguising their voice, standing up, or moving to another part of the room. Repeat as many times as desired with different students doing the guessing and speaking.
Source: https://oscarlessons.com/time-killer-games/
Ideas for Lower Elementary
My Favorite Things
Give each child a piece of paper divided into four sections with the labels Toy, Animal, Person, and Game. Give the students time to draw their favorite of each label in the appropriate section of the paper. Once they have finished, collect all the papers and put them on a stack. Let each child pick up someone else’s paper from the stack. The class must then guess whose paper it is.
From https://gokidpower.org/group-games-for-kids/
Look Up, Look Down
Have the students stand in a circle, around one or two feet apart. The teacher calls out, “Look down!” All the students must stare at the ground. Once some time has passed, the teacher says, “Look up!” The children must immediately look up and at another person in the circle. If two students are looking at each other, they need to sit down. The remaining players must keep staring at their chosen person until they are told to look down. The game repeats until there is nobody left.
From https://gokidpower.org/group-games-for-kids/
BINGO
A slight twist on the classic game, this version has squares that are filled in with things like, “I have a dog,” or “I am wearing green today.” See the attached PDF for printable bingo cards to give to each of your students, along with a calling card for the teacher and instructions for use. (Made using https://myfreebingocards.com/)
Telephone
The teacher starts by whispering a sentence into a student’s ear. That student then whispers it to another student, who whispers it to another student, and so on, until it has reached the last student. That student stays it aloud. Usually the sentence has changed drastically from its original form by the time it reaches the end!
Various Individual or Small Group Games
If you’d like some games that can be played by an individual child or perhaps in pairs or small groups, things like Play-Doh or puzzles are great options. Another fun one for children in younger elementary is pattern block puzzles (also called tangrams), which can be purchased online in a wooden or plastic version or printed for free as paper form. Lacing cards are a similar activity that can be purchased or made yourself. (You could make your own by printing them on heavy paper such as cardstock, making holes with a single hole punch, and attaching yarn to them).
Ideas for Upper Elementary
Wordle
This online game has gained intense popularity since it first became public in 2021 and now has millions of users. If you’re not familiar with it, the aim of the game is to guess a five-letter word within six guesses. For each guess you make, you gain more information, as correct letters that are in the right spot turn green, letters that are in the word but in the wrong spot turn yellow, and letters that aren’t in the word at all turn grey. You can play a classroom version with your students by thinking of your own five-letter word. Write students’ guesses on the chalkboard and circle appropriate letters with green or yellow chalk. Younger students may need more than six guesses.
Boggle
Play a classroom version of this classic board game by writing up either a 4x4 or 5x5 grid of random letters. Students work individually to see who can make the most words (or you could work as a whole class to create one large list). Remind students of the following rules: words must be at least three letters long, consecutive letters must be touching either on an edge or corner, and you may not use the same letter more than once in a single word. Students are often amazed by how many words it’s possible to make from a single grid.
What’s Going On in This Picture?
This is an online conversation the New York Times has facilitated for students for years, in which they post a Times photo stripped of its caption and have students try to guess what’s happening in the picture. You can facilitate the same discussion in your classroom with your own students. There are hundreds of past “What’s Going On in This Picture” photos at https://www.nytimes.com/column/learning-whats-going-on-in-this-picture. You can print or project these pictures and have your students try to use context clues to sleuth out what’s going in the picture. They must back up their guesses with evidence, which builds critical thinking skills.
Drawing Challenge
This activity encourages creativity and imagination with a touch of silliness thrown in. Students are first instructed to write a list of fifteen random things that they know they can draw. Then, they are given a descriptive paragraph with fifteen blanks in it. They input their fifteen words into the fifteen blanks, resulting in a description of a scene that they are supposed to then draw. Students love the random nature of this activity. See the attached PDF for one such drawing challenge or make up your own!
Dollar Words
Create a list on the chalkboard with each of the letters of the alphabet and a corresponding cents value. A is 1¢, B is 2¢, C is 3¢, etc., all the way to Z being 26¢. The aim of the game is to try to come up with a word that is worth exactly one dollar. (Variations could be made where they try to create a word or phrase worth two dollars, three dollars, etc.)
Rebus Puzzles
These puzzles are a visual representation of a name, word, or phrase. They range from text only to including images and symbols. For example, Lang4uage is a rebus puzzle standing for “foreign language” (four in language). Or Apple would mean “apple pie.” Hundreds of rebus puzzles can be found online.
Stop the Bus
Write several categories on the board, like animals, food, colors, countries, sports, names, household items, etc. Either in small groups or individually, students write those categories on a piece of paper. The teacher says a letter, like “R,” and each team/individual needs to fill in each of the categories with a word starting with “R.” Whoever finishes first calls out, “Stop the bus!” and everyone must stop. Points may be awarded for how many answers each team/individual wrote. This can be repeated as many times as you want with different letters and different categories.
Source: https://oscarlessons.com/time-killer-games/
Various Individual or Small Group Games
If you’d like some games that can be played by an individual child or perhaps in pairs or small groups, crossword puzzles, word searches, logic puzzles, or Sudoku puzzles can be good options. Sometimes older students enjoy things like adult coloring pages or adult dot-to-dots, which hearken back to activities they enjoyed when they were younger but are challenging enough to stretch them now. You could also consider finding some brain teasers or pulling out a few 500- or 1000-piece puzzles.
