Students love playing games, which makes them an effective tool for reinforcing learning skills. Here are a few classroom games designed to enhance language, art and math abilities in students.

Play this listening practice game to help children hone their listening skills. Provide them with a list of forbidden words (such as apple, play, of or food) and ask them to jump onto either the True or False side when they hear an undesirable one.

1. Memory

Strengthen children’s memory muscles through engaging classroom games that involve drawing or reciting. This will increase working memory capacity as well as sharpen their note-taking skills.

Number all four corners of the room and designate one student as “It”. Students close their eyes and choose one corner before being told by “It” that their selection was wrong; should this group remain standing they will need to sit down until their mistake has been corrected.

Play Classroom 6x using subject-related categories to develop students’ creative thinking and encourage teamwork. This game can also increase students’ abilities to think beyond the box and use their imagination! It is a fantastic way of encouraging collaboration.

2. Counting

Number games provide an exciting way for students to practice their counting skills while getting up and moving around the classroom. Not only are number games engaging ways of practicing counting skills, they can also teach participants about grouping and skip counting concepts.

Play a variation of “stella ella ola,” in which random numbers and letters are written on the board, with students asked to circle them within an allotted amount of time. This activity helps reinforce connections between number words and objects.

Make teams count objects such as pencils or flowers correctly; those who do so earn points / wins.

3. Drawing

Drawing is a wonderful way for visual learners to develop visual learning and expand their vocabulary while at the same time encouraging creativity and motor skills development.

Take on Picture Dictation or Pictionary as an exciting challenge: the first student who correctly guesses their partners’ descriptions wins!

Students should sit in groups and each have a dictionary or textbook under their arm, racing to find words or images when the teacher says them. Another fun variation would be for 3 – 4 students to stand at the front of class with their heads down and thumbs in the air, then tiptoe around pinching thumbs from every student who is with their head lowered.

4. Counting Backwards

Backward counting may not come naturally to children, and some fun, hands-on activities may be necessary to ease them through this process. To assist children, incorporate some playful, hands-on games that encourage backward counting.

Craft a number line on a whiteboard or poster starting with high numbers and working down. Cover some numbers with sticky notes or pieces of paper and have students remove them in reverse order – this activity helps students learn observation skills as they count backwards while visualizing number sequence.

Play a variation of musical chairs: Instead of sitting down, kids jump over each number while pronouncing it aloud until they reach zero.

5. Heads and Torsos

Students compete to touch classroom objects with various parts of their bodies – for instance, touching the table with knees or the window with nose. Whoever touches more objects will win.

This game resembles musical chairs without elimination. Select seven students as “It,” who sit in front of the class with heads down on desks while other students put their heads down. As it moves around the room, It taps a random student on the head before that student raises their hand to guess who had tapped them on their heads.

This activity provides an entertaining way to practice numbers, events and vocabulary while having fun!

6. Guess Who

This popular classroom game challenges students to describe their classmates. Teams take turns taking part in this activity by providing descriptions to other team members; the first student who correctly guesses his or her teammates will earn points for their team.

Students should complete a sheet containing facts about themselves such as their favorite food, television show or sport. Have the student in the hot seat read his/her sheet to the group while asking yes/no questions to identify who it describes.

Blindfold Conversation is an engaging classroom game to promote interaction among your students and hone verbal proficiency and geographic knowledge.

Hide and Seek

Hiding and seeking is an engaging game which helps children build social skills by forcing them to keep secrets and problem-solve. Plus, this exciting activity encourages exercise!

Children need to learn how to cope with separation throughout life, and playing hide and seek is an effective way to overcome feelings of autonomy or isolation. No wonder this classic game has endured through generations!

Beginning by designating one person as “it”, and having them stay home base while they count out loud to a set number before scattering to find somewhere to hide, all other players run away trying to find cover as soon as they hear “it”.