30 Fun Games to Play on Zoom with Students

The perfect guide to effectively engaging your students at the start of a lesson!

Games are a fun way to kick off a lesson and whether you’re new to the teaching industry or have been in the game for some time now, you’ll know how important it is to have your students’ attention from the word “Go”!

Below you’ll find our guide to games that’ll transform your Zoom classes from dull and boring to fun and engaging in no time!

Let’s kick this off with a simple game – Hangman! How it works: One player thinks of a word and indicates how many letters it is made up of whilst the other player or players guess the letters to try and build the word. Each wrong guess brings the players one step closer to losing by drawing out one part of the hanging man each time a wrong letter is guessed. Play it online or face-to-face with its board game version!

Learn more:hangmanwords.com

Get your class guessing by asking them to record their guesses as to what the zoomed-in photos are of. Once all photos have been displayed and guesses recorded, ask your students to share their answers. The student with the most correct guesses wins!

Learn more:youtube.com

In this fun alphabet game, students are given a topic and must race to come up with as many words as possible, 1 for each letter of the alphabet if possible, that relate directly to the given topic. E.g. The topic of fruit- A: Apple B: Banana C: Cherry D: Dragon fruit etc.

Learn more:eslgames.com

Keep your learners engaged during Grammar classes as you guide them through learning about compound words and phrases in a unique game-related manner. As a further challenge to this fun word game, ask your students to come up with their very own compound word to share with the class.

Learn more:turtlediary.com

This simple game is great because it incorporates good vocabulary and observation skill practice. The students take turns and say I spy something that… and then either the say the first letter of a random item or the color of the item. The other students then guess what it is and the first person to correctly guess the item wins and gets to have a turn. Find a fun online version linked below!

Learn more:teacherspayteachers.com

Challenge your class with Kahoot- a fun multiple-choice quiz game! Based on specifications provided by the teacher, this computer-based learning game can be graded to suit specific levels and topics.

Learn more:kahoot.com

This is a trivia game based on various company logos. Play this game with older students when taking fun breaks in class. Students could even be encouraged to use their mobile devices to search for logos that they are unfamiliar with.

Learn more:republicworld.com

This is a game your students are sure to love! It gets the class in the mood for learning and helps to better their listening skills. Ask your students to listen to the sound you play, record their answer as to what it is and then share the answers with the class at the end of the tape.

Learn more:learnhip.com

Write down answers to some questions on the board on screen and get the students to guess what the question is. This is a fantastic game for a lesson that deals with question forms. It can be adapted to suit any topic and age group.

Learn more:thatafterschoollife.com

This is a great game for a Monday morning! In this game, students write down what they did on the weekend and send the message, in a private chat, to the teacher. The teacher then reads the messages out one by one and the class guesses who did what on the weekend.

Learn more:games4esl.com

Rock, Paper, Scissors is another familiar game, but it can be easily adapted to suit the current ZOOM classes being hosted. Play online by pairing off your students or use an online version that we’ve linked below for your convenience.

Learn more:rpsgame.org

This is an awesome game for helping to stretch your learners’ imaginations. The teacher can start a story by putting a sentence up on the screen using the whiteboard feature. They would then call on a student to finish off the sentence. Students must finish the sentence and start their own for the next player to continue.

Learn more:imagineforest.com

Play this fun classic game with pairs of students. Students compete to create a vertical, diagonal, or horizontal row of their assigned symbol. The winner keeps their positions and gets to play against the new opponent. Try it for free online or face-to-face with this beautiful wooden tic-tac-toe board game.

Learn more:playtictactoe.org

This fun game can be used to single out words that don’t belong in a certain category eg. banana, apple, hat, peach- The odd one out is “hat” as the category is fruit and “hat” forms part of clothing. This adaptable game is sure to get your class forming different opinions as to why something doesn’t belong and is classified as the odd one out.

Learn more:englishhints.com

Pictionary can be played as a whole-class activity or group activity. One student or a student from each team draws the given object on the screen whilst the others all guess what they are drawing. The first student to guess correctly gets an opportunity to draw next. Students can even play Pictionary online using a drawing site- what a fun activity!

Learn more:drawasaurus.org

Assign the students a list of things they need to find and give them an allocated amount of time to find the objects. After returning to their seats at the end of the time, ask the students to share their findings with the class. This ZOOM scavenger hunt is the perfect game for young learners who benefit greatly from fun, movement-based learning.

Learn more:teambuilding.com

Charades is played by acting something out, without using words, and having the students guess what you are or what you are acting out. It is the perfect game to review vocabulary or concepts learned in the previous lesson.

Learn more:grammar.yourdictionary.com

This is another wonderful game to check that your students are awake and listening- it can also be incorporated into the study stage of a class to test understanding of body parts, for instance, if a lesson had dealt with this. It also doesn’t need to be directly linked to the content of the lesson, and can just be a fun way to wake up your class by saying “Simon says shake your hands in the air” and “Simon says jump up and down” for example. The class would follow the instructions shouted by “Simon” who is the teacher.

Learn more:playtivities.com

Students are paired off with one being a shark and the other a fish. The fish should follow the shark around and imitate their actions. This is a great game when wanting to give your learners a brain break and a chance to have some fun in class.

Learn more:teachingideas.co.uk

For this fun and silly activity, play a song and encourage your learners to dance when they hear music and freeze when it pauses. Students who fail to remain frozen whilst the music is paused are disqualified from the round. Have fun and encourage your learners to see who can come up with the most creative dance move!

Learn more:youtube.com

This is a fabulous quiz game to test your learners’ understanding of concepts at the end of class. Put a name upon the digital whiteboard and ask your students for 3 more names that pertain to what had been studied that day.

Learn more:twinkl.co.za/blog

This Jeopardy-creator is perfect for designing different subject-related trivia questions. Ask your students to fill in the blanks, answer questions, unscramble sentences and decipher if statements as true or false. Here is a card game alternative for this game.

Learn more:jeopardylabs.com

Geo Guesser is an online game meant for older learners and allows students to revise concepts related to various places around the world. Students must choose between a real answer and a fake answer when making their selection.

Learn more:geoguessr.com

Boggle is a classic word game that can be used to enhance a student’s virtual learning experience. Play boggle by creating words using adjacent letters. The longer the word, the higher a students’ points.

Learn more:puzzle-words.com

Top 5 resembles the popular game of Family Feud and is perfect for any online classroom. The teacher presents a category. The class is then allocated a certain amount of time to think of 5 of the most popular answers that relate to the category. The teacher then reads out the 5 most popular options and the students who picked those answers will receive points.

Learn more:boredteachers.com

Mad Libs is a classic word game that requires each student to give a part of a speech according to the prompt left in a blank space in a story. The teacher can write the words down and read the story out at the end! Try one of your very own to see how hilarious some of the stories can be!

Learn more:madlibs.com

Present two choices to your students and ask them to state which they’d rather do and why. This type of game allows learners to develop their critical thinking and argumentative skills. Consider working on quick games such as these into your weekly plan book so as to incorporate them into future lessons.

Learn more:marathonkids.org

This is a great game and team-building activity for new groups. It entails each student telling two truths and one lie about themselves and allowing the class to guess which of the three statements is untrue.

Learn more:blog.prepscholar.com

Start with a word and have each student say what they associate with that word eg: sunny, beach, ice-cream, holiday, hotel, etc. This is a fantastic game to use at the start of a lesson when introducing new concepts. It can also be used to ascertain how much pre-existent knowledge your student has of the subject matter and how much study will be required later in the lesson. Try it out free online or get a word association card game.

Learn more:wordassociation.org

Ask your students to stand up and choose heads or tails. If they choose heads, and the coin is flipped and lands on heads, the students who chose heads remain standing. The students who chose tails are disqualified. Continue to flip the coin until one student remains.

Learn more:justflipacoin.com