Engaging Classroom Games for All Grades

By: Rosshalde Pak

Who doesn’t like to play games?  Not only are games fun, interactive, and social, but they're also great tools for learning.

With so many demands placed on educators to always be ‘standards-focused,’ game can seem like more of a distraction than an instructional tool (especially to principals passing by).  I know many teachers who shy away from games completely because they don’t want their principal to walk in and say, “Umm, Mrs. Pak, why are your students playing around instead of learning?”

On the other hand, games add flair and student engagement to more tedious, yet necessary tasks like teaching math facts, grammar rules and vocabulary, reviewing for tests or even completing lab experiments. Adding an element of competition motivates and energizes students.

Here are my nine student-favorite games to use in K-12 classrooms.

All of these games can be played, with varying degree of difficulty, with younger kinders to older high school students.  It’s the subject matter and the materials that are used that make the difference to the students who are playing the games.

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Merriam-Webster: Word Central

Merriam Webster's Word Central is a great place for teachers and struggleing spellers to refine their understanding of the queens language.  You can build your own custom dictionary, learn about the daily buzz-word, play some word games and find some teacher resoruces.

take a look at Word Central Here.

Funbrain Learning Arcade Games

Every student has surely come across funbrain before and played many of their great literacy and maths games.  What most people don't know is there is a speciifc math's arcade and a reading arcade full of great games.  Some of the classics from Funbrain are math baseball, the plural girls, proton don and grammar gorillas.  Enjoy

Great Educational Games for Students

Thanks to Ryan for this great contribution about creativitygames.net.  It's a website where he's putting weekly word games and other resources to develop creative thinking.  There is also a random word generator which is good for recreating the games in class.  It works nicely on a projector or smart board. http://codebreaker.creativitygames.net

It's a Mastermind like game that is designed it to work well on Smart Boards.  Ryan tells me he has been having success getting the class to solve the code as a group and use it to develop problem solving skills.

Both of these resources have come about as a result of his teaching both at school and uni and  he would now like to share them with as many people as possible.

Thanks Ryan for your efforts and check out his site here.

Multiplication Games for Students

Thanks again to Steph for this quick weekend addition.

These great multiplication games will help students develop quick number recall skills.  Enjoy

Top 5 Cool Maths Sites for students

There are plenty of math sites out on the web that target to different audiences and needs but it is always difficult to find sites that you can just freely let your kids roam and and explore and learn something at the same time.  The list I have put together below are 5 great sites that I can confidently recommend to use in your classroom or at home to have some fun and extend their knowledge.

 Cool Math 4 Kids

Describing itself as an "amusement park of math", this site offers online games, brain benders, flash cards, and a game zone. Parents and teachers will appreciate the printable flash cards. One of the more unique games isLemonade Stand, where kids get to run their own virtual lemonade stand

Math Cats
Kids who love cats will enjoy exploring this site. Learn exactly how old you are in days, minutes and even seconds. Games include multiplication grids, using money, and guessing how many people there are in What a Crowd!

Brain Bashers

Includes an interesting collection of math, logic, and language puzzles, games, and illusions, separated into easy, medium and hard categories.

Escape from Knab
You've won a one-way ticket to the Planet Knab, but once you're there, you find that it isn't what you thought it would be. Get a good job, make wise financial decisions, and save enough to pay for the next rocket ship to Earth, or you might just be stuck on Knab forever!

www.funbrain.com/numbers.html. This site includes 17 original games based on soccer, car racing and much more Other games include Math Baseball, where a child can score runs with correct answers and Operation Order, where students can build pyramids with their knowledge of algebra.

SomeSchoolGames.com - A Fun Place to Learn

At Some School Games you'll find an ever growing collection of online educational kids games that promote problem solving and logical thinking skills. Some of the favorite Kids Games include: Bloxorz, Snorks Long Division, Civiballs Christmas, Red Remover, Grow Games, Bloons Tower Defense 4, other Kids Tower Defense Games, Kids Problem Solving Games and many more. We hope you have fun playing Some School Games that are not blocked at school and feel free to let us know about any games you would like to see on the website. SomeSchoolGames.com - A Fun Place for Kids

My American Farm - Farmville for Students

The American Farm Bureau Foundation for Agriculture’s My American Farm project teaches agricultural literacy to consumers and the public through an interactive computer game. Players learn where food comes from and how those products get from the farm to their dinner plate. My American Farm is an online educational game that lets students learn about agriculture while having fun.  If you have kids in your grade that thinks milk comes from a carton then this is probably a good starting point and avaialble here.