Getting ready for testing can be very stressful for both students and teachers, but here are some fun and engaging review games for test prep to make it a little more enjoyable for everyone.
Team and Partner Games
Castles
Split class into partners or teams (kids could play individually if you have a small group) and set a timer for 5-10 minutes. Do not tell students how much time you are setting it for or let them see the timer. When a set of partners answers a question correctly they have 3 choices:
1. Receive a red solo cup to place on the table and build a castle
2. Receive a ping pong ball to save for a later turn
3. throw a ping pong ball received on an earlier turn at an opponent’s castle.
When the timer goes off the team with the highest castle wins!
Want a no prep version of the game where you just draw the castles? See Attack on TPT for instructions (free.) Although it was designed for middle school it could work for upper elementary too.
Math Problem Index Card Tower
Students solve math problems to earn index cards (they can choose the level of difficulty to earn 1, 2, or 3 cards,) then use the cards to try to build the tallest possible tower.
Grudgeball-
Grudgeball is a class game inspired by Survivor that is a cross between the Pirate Treasure game described below and basketball. It was designed for middle school but would work for upper elementary as well.
Stinky Feet-
Full details including a digital variation are at the link but basically teams answer questions to pull a post it which reveals the number of positive or negative points they earned. They don’t know until the end whether they were playing for high score or low score!
Similar to Stinky Feet in that teams answer a question and get positive or negative points, but they can also choose to give the points to another team.
The Unfair Game
Similar to Stinky Feet in that teams answer a question and get positive or negative points, but they can also choose to give the points to another team.
Pirate Treasure
Divide class into teams or partners and give them 10 pieces of treasure each. (plastic coins, plastic jewels, red and yellow counters, whatever you have.) When a team gets a question correct, they may steal two pieces of treasure from any opponents. When they get a question incorrect the teacher steals two from them! Teacher taken treasure is permanently out of the game. The last team with treasure (or the team with the most when time is up) wins!
Amazing Race Challenge
Class Collaborative Review Games
Headbands
Write a review term on a post-it note. Each student sticks the note to his or her forehead without looking at it. They then have to figure out what the term on the forehead is by asking other students for clues.
Dress Up
When a student answers a question correctly he gets to choose an item from a bag of crazy dress up props for the teacher to wear (oversize sunglasses, silly hats, scarves, etc.)
One teacher writes: “This is what I did for my most challenging class a couple years ago- scoreboard where they try to beat the teacher. If the teacher loses the teacher has to do some sort of challenge. They can help you come up with ideas. I had to learn a tik Tok dance, eat a chocolate covered bug, sing, go to PE and run laps with them, wear my shirt backwards, etc. It was fun to see them excited to beat me, plus it was good relationship building too. I only had to do like one challenge a week because my class was tough! But we laughed together the last two months of school. And they still come back and talk about it.”
Also see my “Ways to Use Task Cards” page for many other game and activity ideas that can be used with any task card or practice problem!