For those of you in need of fun no tech games, we’ve got you covered! From board games, to card games, these games take more prep in order to prepare the materials.
I’ve got a lot of these games from waygook, or from other people, and have changed and adjusted the games to suit my students/classes.These games are tried and tested by multiple elementary school teachers, and the students have absolutely loved them. The games can be adjusted for all age levels, but have mainly been used with elementary schoolers and middle schoolers.
Below you will find screenshots of each game, instructions on how to play it, and a template for you to use! The content of these games are easy to change up, making them a perfect platform for all students (textbook or for any needs you may have!) The games are not listed in any particular order.
Happy Gaming everyone~~~
1. Snakes & Ladders
Snakes & Ladders is my go to game for practicing reading, speaking, and listening skills with the students. You can even have it test writing skills if you leave fill in the blanks and tell sutdents to fill them in! You have to fill in the template with your lesson related content. No other prep is necessary. Students can use their own erases as board markers, and to move have the students do “rock paper scissors.” This determines the number of spaces students can move.
Skills: Listening, reading, speaking + writing (possible also)
2. Flick the Eraser/Conquer the Land
Flick the Eraser/Conquer the Land is a good game for testing listening skills. Simply put a series of pictures on a page to test the vocabulary you want the students to learn, and print it out (1 page per 2 students). For this game, I printed out a sheet of different country flags. When you say the flag, the students take turns flicking their eraser. If it lands on the correct flag that was spoken, they “conquer the land” or the space. They can mark it as theirs with a pencil.
Skills: Listening
Flick the Eraser Instructions (PPT)
Download Flick the Eraser Board Template
3. Slap Game
Slap Game is also another basic game I play with my kids all the time. It tests their listening skills. You simply need to print out the vocab pictures and paste them on the board, or you can make individual printouts for students to play in partners. If you paste them on the board, you can choose students two at a time to come up and play. The teacher says the vocab words, and the student who “slaps” or grabs/picks up the cards the fastest gets to hold onto it. The student with the most cards collected at the end wins.
Skills: Listening
4. Go Fish!
Go Fish is a classic American card game you can play with students to have them learn vocab words. The only thing is that the prep time takes quite a while for this game. You need to make and print and cut out enough decks of cards for each group of students (4-5 students per group). In the template there are 26 cards, so you need to print them 2 times to make a full deck (for a total of 52 cards in a deck).
They also sell Go Fish cards on the internet though, so you could always buy them (even if they aren’t related to the current chapter you are teaching).
Skills: Reading, listening, speaking
Download Go Fish Cards Template
5. Make a Tail
Make a Tail is a fun way to get students up and about, reading sentence cards, and listening to one another. You need to print out 3 different sentence cards per student, or, print out enough sentences so each student in the class gets one, but that there are only 3 sentences used. Students go around to each other saying their sentence. If their sentences are the same, they do “rock, paper, scissors.” The loser has to walk around behind the winner, creating a “tail.” At the end, when all students are part of a tail, you should have the winners/leaders of each tail do rock, paper, scissors. The winner wins the game!!! 🙂 My kids realyl love this game.
Skills: Reading, listening, speaking