Blooket
Students answer your questions to power arcade-style game modes, so the same question set can be replayed as a different game each time.
Classroom Learning Games
A directory of games teachers use in class, sorted by type, subject and grade. Each listing says what makes it different, what it costs and what you need to play it.
It covers live quiz games, review games, sites full of ready-made online games, and games that need no preparation or materials at all.
Games like Kahoot
Deck.Toys
Lessons laid out as a path students follow, plus whole-class games that use your own questions.
Gimkit
A game show where correct answers earn in-game cash that students spend on upgrades, so strategy matters as well as knowledge.
Kahoot!
The live quiz most others are compared with. Questions show on the main screen and students race to answer on their own devices.
Nearpod
Interactive lessons with game activities built in, so the quiz sits inside the lesson instead of after it.
Plickers
The one to use when students have no devices. Each student holds up a printed card and you scan the room with your phone.
Quizalize
Quiz games tied to curriculum standards, with results that show which skills each student still needs.
Quizlet Live
Turns any Quizlet study set into a team race where groups have to talk to each other to find the right answer.
Socrative
Built for quick checks for understanding more than for play, with instant results as students submit.
Wayground (formerly Quizizz)
Quizizz under its new name. Students work through a quiz at their own pace instead of waiting for the slowest answer.
Review games
Baamboozle
Team quiz games run from the teacher's screen, so students need no devices or accounts.
Bingo Baker
Make bingo cards from your own words or images, then print them or play online.
Breakout EDU
Escape-room style games where teams use what they know to solve puzzles and break out.
ClassTools
A long-running collection of free game and tool generators made for classroom teachers.
Educaplay
Game generator covering crosswords, jigsaws, dialogues and more, with a live mode where you host and students play on their devices.
Factile
Jeopardy-style board maker with timers and an optional buzzer mode where teams buzz in from their phones.
Flippity
A set of quick game templates, including a Family Feud-style survey game for up to six teams and printable tile puzzles.
JeopardyLabs
Build a Jeopardy board in the browser without PowerPoint, or pick from templates other people have made.
Wordwall
One activity can be switched between 30+ formats such as quizzes, matching games and flashcards, and printed for offline use.
Online games
ABCya
Games organized by grade from Pre-K to 6+. A handful are free each week and membership unlocks the rest.
Arcademics
Multiplayer racing-style games for math facts, spelling, typing and geography.
Funbrain
Games, books and videos you can browse by grade from Pre-K to 8.
Mr. Nussbaum
Thousands of activities and over 400 games made by an elementary teacher, strong on US history and geography.
PBS KIDS Games
Games built around PBS KIDS characters such as Curious George, Wild Kratts and Daniel Tiger.
RoomRecess
Over 160 reading, typing and math games made by an elementary teacher, with no sign-up or account needed.
Sheppard Software
Hundreds of free games, with unusually deep geography and animal sections alongside math and science.
Toy Theater
Art, reading and math games designed for kindergarten to third grade, plus virtual manipulatives that work on a smartboard.
Turtle Diary
More than 1,000 games across math, language arts, science and geography, with a multiplayer section.
No-prep games
20 Questions
Yes-or-no questions that practice narrowing down by category.
Think of a person, place, animal or term from the unit. The class has twenty yes-or-no questions to work out what it is. Writing the questions on the board helps students build on each other's answers instead of guessing at random.
Around the World
Fast head-to-head practice for math facts or vocabulary.
One student stands beside a seated classmate. Show a flashcard or ask a question. Whoever answers first moves on to stand beside the next student; the other sits. The aim is to travel all the way around the room.
Buzz
A counting game for practicing multiples.
Pick a number, say 3. Students count around the circle, but anyone who lands on a multiple of 3 says "buzz" instead. Saying the number, or hesitating too long, means sitting down. Add a second number and "fizz" to make it harder.
Categories
A quick word game that works in any subject.
Give a category such as animals, verbs or elements, and a letter. Teams have one minute to write as many matching words as they can. Words that no other team wrote score double.
Charades
Acting out words, good for verbs and for young or beginner learners.
A student picks a word card and acts it out without speaking while the class or their team guesses. Use action verbs, animals, jobs or story characters.
Empire
A memory and deduction game for a spare fifteen minutes.
Everyone secretly writes a famous name, or a term from the unit, on a slip. Read all the slips aloud twice, then put them away. Students take turns guessing who wrote which. A correct guess brings that person into your empire and you guess again. The last empire standing wins.
Four Corners
A movement game that doubles as a multiple-choice review.
Label the corners of the room A, B, C and D. Ask a question, give four answers, and students walk to the corner they think is right. Reveal the answer; those in the wrong corners sit down, or simply start the next round so nobody is out for long.
Heads Up, Seven Up
The classic quiet game for the last five minutes.
Seven students stand at the front. Everyone else puts their head down with a thumb up. Each of the seven quietly presses down one thumb, then returns to the front. The chosen students stand and each gets one guess at who picked them. A correct guess swaps them in.
Hot Seat
Vocabulary review where the class does the explaining.
One student sits facing the class with their back to the board. Write a word or term on the board. The class gives clues without saying the word until the student in the hot seat guesses it. Play in two teams and time each turn to keep it moving.
Pictionary
Drawing vocabulary on the board for a team to guess.
Split into two teams. One student from a team draws a word from your list on the board while their team guesses within a time limit. No letters, numbers or talking from the artist.
Silent Ball
Calms a room down while keeping everyone involved.
Students sit on or stand by their desks and throw a soft ball to each other in complete silence. Talking, a bad throw or a dropped catch means you sit down. To add learning, the catcher must answer a question before throwing.
Sparkle
A whole-class spelling game that needs only a word list.
Students stand in a circle. Call out a word. Each student in turn says the next letter. After the last letter the next student says "sparkle" and the student after that sits down. A wrong letter also means sitting down. Last one standing wins.
Trashketball
Review questions with a shot at the bin as the reward.
Split the class into teams and ask review questions. A correct answer earns a point and a throw of a paper ball at the bin from a marked line for a bonus point. Teams answering on mini whiteboards keeps everyone working on every question.
Two Truths and a Lie
A get-to-know-you game that also works as a fact check on a topic.
Each student writes three statements, two true and one false. The class votes on which is the lie. For content review, students write the statements about the unit instead of about themselves.
Math games
99math
Live math-fact rounds for the whole class. Students join without accounts and a round takes a few minutes.
Boddle
A 3D game world covering math and English language arts, with questions that adapt to each student.
Coolmath Games
Logic, strategy and thinking games more than curriculum drill. Good as a reward or brain break.
Hooda Math
Over 1,000 math games run by a math teacher. It also hosts general arcade games, so point students at a specific game.
Math Playground
Math games, logic puzzles and problem-solving activities made by an educator.
Prodigy Math
A fantasy role-playing game where students answer curriculum-aligned math questions to win battles.
SplashLearn
Math and reading games with teaching tools for the classroom screen.
Sumdog
The whole class plays the same math or spelling game while each student gets questions at their own level.
Reading and language games
Freerice
A trivia game owned by the UN World Food Programme, built around its work to end hunger. Vocabulary is the best-known category.
Starfall
Phonics-first reading games from a nonprofit. The learn-to-read program is free and membership adds more.
Vocabulary Jam
A live team vocabulary contest from Vocabulary.com.
ESL games
Duck English
Vocabulary, grammar and phonics games made for smartboards and touchscreens, with no ads and no account. Includes a team scoreboard.
ESL Fun Online
Games alongside grammar lessons and vocabulary practice for English learners.
ESL Games Plus
Interactive games for vocabulary, grammar and sentence building, plus team games made for classroom practice and printable puzzles.
ESL Kids Games
Quick online vocabulary games for young English learners.
Games to Learn English
A small set of simple games for practicing English vocabulary and grammar.
Games4esl
Games, worksheets and lesson plans made by teachers. The games are designed to be shown to the whole class.
LearnEnglish Kids
The British Council's games and tongue twisters for children learning English.
Science and social studies games
Code.org
Free computer science courses for K–12 with game-like coding puzzles.
iCivics
Civics games that can be played individually or as a whole class with the game projected.
Legends of Learning
Standards-aligned science, history and math games reviewed by educators.
Minecraft Education
The classroom edition of Minecraft, with a library of lessons across the curriculum.
Mission US
Role-playing missions that put students inside moments in US history. Developed for middle school.
NASA Space Place
NASA's games about space and Earth science for children.
National Geographic Kids
Quizzes, puzzles and fill-in games on animals and the natural world.
Scratch
A free block-based programming language. Here students make their own games instead of playing someone else's.
Seterra
Map quizzes for every continent, with printable versions. Now part of GeoGuessr.
Frequently asked questions
What are good classroom learning games?
It depends on what you have in the room. With student devices, live quiz games such as Kahoot!, Blooket and Gimkit are the usual starting point. With only a teacher screen, Baamboozle, JeopardyLabs and Flippity run team games from the front. With nothing at all, Four Corners, Hot Seat and Trashketball need no materials.
What classroom games need no prep or materials?
Four Corners, Heads Up Seven Up, Silent Ball, Around the World, Sparkle, Buzz, 20 Questions, Categories and Charades all work with no materials. The no-prep section explains how to play each one.
What are classroom games like Kahoot?
Blooket, Gimkit, Wayground (formerly Quizizz), Quizlet Live, Quizalize and Socrative all run live quizzes on student devices. The main differences are pace and style: Wayground lets students work at their own speed, Gimkit adds strategy through in-game cash, and Quizlet Live makes teams talk to each other. Plickers does the same job with printed cards when students have no devices.
What are the best free classroom games online?
Blooket, JeopardyLabs, 99math, RoomRecess, Arcademics, Sheppard Software, Toy Theater, Hooda Math, Code.org and Scratch are free according to their own sites. Several others, including Kahoot!, Baamboozle, Factile and Wordwall, have a free plan with limits. Each listing shows the cost where the site states it.
What classroom games work for high school students?
Tools that take your own questions work best, because the content is specific to the course: Kahoot!, Gimkit, Quizlet Live, Factile and JeopardyLabs. For no-prep options, Trashketball, Hot Seat, Categories and Two Truths and a Lie hold up with older students.
What classroom games work for kindergarten?
Starfall, PBS KIDS Games, ABCya and Toy Theater are built for early grades. For games without screens, Four Corners, Heads Up Seven Up and Charades have rules that five-year-olds can follow.
How do you play classroom Jeopardy without buzzers?
Give each team a mini whiteboard. Read the clue, give every team the same time to write an answer, and award the points to every team that gets it right. That removes the argument over who was first and keeps all teams working on every question. JeopardyLabs and Factile both give you the board; Factile also has a buzzer mode that uses students' phones if you want one.
What are good classroom review games?
For a ready-made board, use JeopardyLabs or Factile. For team games from one screen, Baamboozle and Flippity. For a review that feels like an arcade game, Blooket and Gimkit. With no technology, Trashketball and Four Corners turn any list of questions into a game.