How to combine games with learning in a fun and easy way

Do you know how combining games with learning can benefit your teaching? Because it can, honestly! Games are fun, everyone knows it, so why not include them in your lessons if they can make those lessons even better than they already are? I will tell your exactly why I think you should absolutely consider it.

I’ll be honest with you: I used to be afraid of playing games with students during lesson time. I thought they became too rowdy whenever we did, and I felt like I lost control over them. So I almost never did, even though the best teacher I knew told me it was awesome. Until I tried it, and it was amazing! Students loved it, were so engaged and active in problem solving, and most of all, they were engaging with the material like never before! Of course, you do have to relinquish control a little, but if you set the boundaries and rules beforehand it will be a success, I promise.

Grab this free PDF of 7 Whiteboard Games you can play with just a whiteboard and a marker by clicking here!

Why use games in learning situations

So why should you use games in your lessons? Games increase students’ motivation and engagement, because games are FUN. They also improve interaction and collaboration abilities of students, as well as their visual skills. Adding in games also reduces the use of monotonous learning methods, which helps students with focus, self-esteem and memory. Above all, using games helps create enthusiastic learners, and isn’t that what we all want?

Now, we don’t want to just play games for the sake of it. They must align with the curriculum and connect to what the student has just learned. The use of games must complement traditional teaching methods to make the learning experience more fun.

When to play games with students

Adding in a game can be done at several points during a lesson.

• You can start the lesson with a game. In this case the game can serve as an ice breaker to introduce the topic; it can be a review of what students learned previously; or it can be a tool to appeal to different learning styles before starting.
• Ending the lesson with a game is also an option. In this case the game will serve as a tool to help retain knowledge students just attained; it can help review what they learned over time; or it can simply fix a dip in concentration towards the end of a class period.
• Using a game as a review tool or as a way to fix a dip in concentration can be done at any point during the lesson, whenever you feel like students need it. This works really well if you have longer class periods.

Games for motivating students

So what games are fun to use for motivating students, you ask? Well, let me tell you my favorites:

1. Word searches and crosswords are great for any topic or subject that has vocabulary words or concepts that you want students to remember. Deciphering the clues in crosswords, and simple being reminded of important words will help students retain that knowledge.
2. Bingo, memory and dominoes games are super for matching words or concepts with visual aids, which in turns helps knowledge stick in the long-term memory.
3. Charades and Pictionary are awesome to both come up with clues for those that are presenting, and deciphering them for the contender.
4. Taboo works roughly the same way in that clues must be presented in an ingenious way to explain the word or concept you want to hear without revealing too much.
5. Board games are excellent for prompts you want students to answer. You can give students math problems, language problems or whatever else you like and they can’t continue until they solve what’s in the box they land on.

Setting up to combine games with learning

Some of these games are easy to set up, like charades, Pictionary and taboo, since you only have to come up with the words or concepts you want students to review. Setting up a bingo game and making word searches and crosswords takes some more time, but on myfreebingocards.com and crosswordlabs.com you can put them together quite quickly by adding in your own words (and clues for crosswords). You may need to take some time to think of what you want to show as bingo ‘balls’: pictures of the words, antonyms, clues, etc.

Memory, dominoes and board games are harder to create. You really have to commit to creating a large game here. Memory and dominoes games need words on one side and either picture clues or sentence clues on the opposite side. You would need to create them from scratch just how you like them. The same goes for board games, you would need to come up with the prompts in all the boxes. But the great thing is, once you have these games, you can use them forever if you laminate them!

Need some ELA games that are done for you?

Don’t you want to go through all this trouble, and are you an ELA teacher? Then I might have some games in my store that you want to check out! Click here to find my entire bundle of games that I have for grammar and the bundle I have for vocabulary topics. You can check out each game that is in the bundle individually to see if there’s anything that is of use to you. I can imagine not everything is, but if I can help you with even a single one, I’m a happy teacher!

I also have a blog post specifically about games for vocabulary teaching if you’d like to know more.

So there you have it, my opinion on combining games with learning! I hope you will try some of these games in your lessons some time! Remember, you’re not giving away control, you’re setting rules and boundaries while also allowing for a good time to happen!

Let me know how it goes!

Wanna read more blog posts about games for learning? Check out these:

Why learning games for kids are important for success

Best vocabulary themed board games for your classroom

The Language Adventurist also has some great tips in this blog post.

Or this one about learning grammar:

Your simple solution to the question, “is it who, whom or that?”