For the new school year, many schools will be starting back at least partially with distance learning. Learning with games is a great way to start off the new school year. To help teachers with this, I am creating a set of digital game activities for Google Slides. To know what was already available, (There is no point in reinventing the wheel.) I searched the internet. I found many free resources including templates for creating great educational games for Google Slides. This post is about sharing some great finds.
When the link sends you to a Google Slide you can’t edit it, all you need to do is make a copy to your Google Drive. Do this by clicking File > Make a Copy. This makes the activity yours and you can edit it to meet the needs of your subject and students.
Traditional Educational Games and Activities
#1 – Trail Game
Let’s Play is a free template available in both Google Slides and PowerPoint versions. This trail game contains a built-in dice for student play. Editable playing card templates are set up for you to add your own questions including videos as well as audio.
#2 – Would You Rather
This Would You Rather free template is from Ditch That Textbook. A three-slide template is available in PowerPoint and Google Slides formats.
Board Games Turned Digital
#3 Candy Land with a Twist for Big Kids
Amanda Sandoval created a free Google Slide presentation to teach students about Google Apps. The Google Land is formatted after, you guessed it, Candy Land. It’s a fantastic educational game for students. The link takes you to a Google Doc page with additional links for getting the free resource.
#4 Clue
Stephanie Howell offers step-by-step instructions and templates for creating a Google Slides Clue game. This game has students solving a mystery while also solving task cards.
#5 Connect 4
Cassie Noack has a beach-themed Connect 4 Freebie in her TPT store.
Television Games Turned Digital
#6 The Price is Right
Jen Walter created The Price is Right to teach metric estimation.
#7 Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?
If ‘Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?‘ is the activity you are interested in, look no more. Ditch that Textbook has a free game template.
#8 Jeopardy
Richard Byrne created an editable Jeopardy Game Template for educators to use in the classroom or for distance learning. In the video below, he explains how to customize the template for your content.
Choice Boards
#9 Bingo
Back-to-School Bingo by Lisa Guardino is a choice board with links to 9 activities that are great for the first weeks of school.
#10 Connect Four
Connect Four Warm-Up created by Rachel Marker contains 16 activities.
#11 Party Challenge
Party Challenge Board is an editable choice board set up for 12 activities. Just change the titles of the buttons and type up activity descriptions on the cards.
#12 Find the Treasure
Find the Treasure – Even though Find the Treasure is not a game, it will add some visual appeal to your lesson. This is a scratch-off choice board. The Google Slides are set up for 8 activity choices. Just change the text to the eight activities you want students to consider doing for the lesson and assign the Google Slides as a way of presenting the options.
#13 Bump
Earlier in the year, I turned several educational games including Bump for Google Slides. You can get them here:
The BFG digital version
Al Capone Does My Shirts digital version
#14 Trail Games
This is another set of games that I turned into digital.
Walk Two Moons Digital Trail Game digital version
Television Games Created with PowerPoint
Needless to say, I won’t be creating PowerPoint templates. You can find many terrific free downloads on the internet. Just a word of warning…Many of you know you can now open PowerPoint presentations on Google Slides. Be aware that many PowerPoint elements, including sound, animations, and other properties, will not work when you do this. The chances that these PowerPoint games will work in Google Slides are slim.
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- Rusnak Creative has several free PowerPoint game shows with all the bells and whistles to make the games look and sound like the original shows. Easy-to-edit features mean you can add your questions and puzzles. These links are direct links to the PowerPoints.
- Rusnak Creative has several free PowerPoint game shows with all the bells and whistles to make the games look and sound like the original shows. Easy-to-edit features mean you can add your questions and puzzles. These links are direct links to the PowerPoints.
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- Bingo
- Lifewire has 14 PowerPoint game templates for teachers. Some of these are the same as Rusnake Creative.
- Free PowerPoint Templates
- This page from Mine Rescue contains links to dozens of ready-to-play PowerPoint presentations.
- Kevin Culpepper offers The Feuding Wheel of Knowledge, Jeopardy, Millionaire, Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader?, Celebrity Squares, Weakest Link, Chain Reaction, and Class Feud.
- San Clemente High School has PowerPoint templates for Jeopardy, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, and Cash Cab.
- Template.net has 17+ PowerPoint Game templates.
