Hi! My name is Rachael from The Classroom Game Nook Blog. As you might guess based on my blog name, I’m a big fan of using games in the classroom. Games allow students to work with others to learn or review skills in a meaningful way. Plus, they’re fun and kids (and teachers!) prefer them WAY more than worksheets and textbooks.
Some of the best review games are the ones that allow students to get up and move! No matter what skill you want to review or what grade level you teach, these 5 active review games are a sure to win over your kiddos!
I haven’t participated in an actual cake walk since about the 5th grade, but I borrowed the idea behind the cake walk to create a fun review game for the classroom! It’s so easy to create. Simply choose a skill you would like your students to review. I used this game for rounding to the nearest tens and hundreds.
To play, I had prepared ahead of time large cards with numbers on them (10, 20, 30, 40….100). I taped the cards to the floor in a large circle (this game is shown only for rounding to the nearest 100s. You can also tape the cards around the perimeter of your room. You will need at least one card of the floor for each students playing, more cards is OK too.)
Each student stands on a number. The teacher plays music while the students walk around the circle stepping on the numbers. When the music stops, students must land on a number. The teacher then calls out a number (ex. 56) Students decide what 56 rounds to (60) Any students standing on the number 60 gets a point! No one gets eliminated (like a regular cake walk), so game can continue for as long as you’d like. Have students keep track of their points by giving the winners a Popsicle stick to hold on to.
Of course this game can be modified for any skill. For example, you can write the products to multiplication problems on the cards and call out a multiplication problem for students to solve. The students standing on the answer gets a point. This game could also work as a vocabulary review by writing vocabulary words on the cards and calling out definitions.
If you’d like my FREE copy of the Rounding Cake Walk shown above (already done for you!), simply click on the picture below:
If you have a large piece of poster board, then you have everything you need to play this game (and the boys are gonna LOVE YOU for actually letting them throw a paper plane!) I saw this game originally used for an airplane-themed birthday party, but immediately thought it would work great in the classroom. This game blows Jeopardy out of the water. Instead of having students just choose a category and level for each review question like in Jeopardy, students have to throw a paper plane through the holes in the poster board hung from the ceiling. Here’s how it works:
This game works great inside (as long as you have a large open space) or outside during the warmer months. Again, use this game idea for any skill and prepare your cards accordingly. The rules are the same as any memory-style game, just larger than life! 🙂
Here’s another game that is sure to win over your most energetic boys (and girls!). Simply purchase a cheap nerf gun with suction darts (like this one, find suction darts here). Then, using a white board, design a target board with several circles. Inside each circle write a skill you want your students to practice. It could be sight words, math facts, vocabulary words, synonyms/antonyms…the possibilities are endless! Using the nerf gun, students aim for a circle to practice their skill. For example, if in your circles you have written addition facts (ex. 4+3), students would shout out the answer of the math fact that they landed on.
Four corners is a great classic game for the classroom for indoor recess. Take it beyond recess and turn it into a review game with this freebie PowerPoint template. Create an easy review game for any skill or grade level:
