DIY Board Games for the Classroom

Written by Alison Smith

Updated 4 years ago | 4 min read

Are you looking for board games for the classroom? Perhaps you are looking for reading center activities or math center activities? Board games make teaching and learning fun! Most importantly, playing an engaging game is an effective way to consolidate knowledge of key learning areas.

So, what’s the easiest way to get your hands on the perfect board game for your class? The answer is to create your own with the help of our Blank Game Board Collection! Here are a few DIY board game ideas to inspire you…

Crazy Consonant Blends

Are you planning to teach consonant blends? If you are, then create a quick, easy, and effective board game by using our Blank Game Board – Purple – V2!

Simply, write consonant blends on each square of the game board. Then, you are pretty much ready to go! With a partner, encourage your student to roll a die, move their counter, and sound out the consonant blend. It’s easy to differentiate for individual learning needs by providing leveled tasks.

For example, three different levels of phonics challenges could include:

Sounding out the consonant blend.
Identifying and saying a word that includes the consonant blend.
Saying and writing a word that includes the consonant blend.

Support less able students by using our Blend and Digraph Cards. You can find more must-have phonics teaching resources by heading to our Phonological Awareness Learning Area or our Phonics Games Collection.

Sight Word Space Crusade

The key to creating a board game is to keep it simple. It’s super easy to create a game based around sight words. I used our Blank Game Board – Space Crusade.

Students take turns rolling the die and completing a differentiated activity based on the sight word that they land on. Sight Word Space Crusade is ideal to include in your reading center activities. Here are a few activity ideas:

Reading the word.
Building the word with letter tiles.
Identifying rhyming words.
Writing the word in a sentence.

For more ideas on teaching sight words read Holly’s blog 13 Fun Sight Word Activities for Home and School.

Ocean Number Fact Adventure

Add some excitement to your math rotations by including a number facts board game! I used our Blank Game Board – Ocean Adventure and our Basic Fact Cards to set up a simple game that consolidates knowledge of basic number facts.

The aim of this simple and effective game is to collaborate with a partner to cover all of the numbers of the game board with a counter.

How to Create the Board Game

Select and print 27 (or more) Basic Fact Cards
Write the answers to match the chosen Basic Fact Cards on to the Blank Game Board – Ocean Adventure
Provide each group with a game board, a set of cards, and counters.

How to Play

Students take turns to pick a card from the top of the pile.
Use fact strategies to calculate the equation.
Explain your strategy to the group. For example “to calculate 15-9, I took away 10 and added 1 back on”.
Check answer with the group.
Place a counter on the corresponding number on the game board.

Dizzy Doubles

Remember – keep it simple! This allows students to focus more on math and less on how to play! Dizzy Doubles is perfect for lower grade students who need to consolidate knowledge of doubles. Students simply roll a die and calculate the double of the number that they land on.

I used our Blank Game Board – Purple – V2.

Here are some suggestions for differentiation:

Use concrete items to calculate doubles.
Recall doubles using fact strategies.
Write the corresponding number sentences. For example 2 + 2 = 4 and 2 × 2 =4.

Monkey Maze Spelling Words

Are your students lacking the motivation to learn their weekly spelling words? The Monkey Maze Spelling Words board game is a great way to inject some variety and fun when learning spelling words. To create the Monkey Maze Spelling Words board game, you will need our Blank Game Board – Monkey Maze and Weekly Spelling Words and Activity Grid – Lower Years.

Our Weekly Spelling Words and Activity Grid – Lower Years is a handy template for creating a weekly spelling list. Most importantly this teaching resource includes a grid with suggested spelling word activities! You can copy and paste the activity ideas provided or add your own!

How to Create the Game

Create a spelling activity grid by using our Weekly Spelling Words and Activity Grid – Lower. Edit the numbers on the spelling list to suit your needs.
Write numbers to match your spelling list and the letters AG (activity grid), on the blank game board.

How to Play

Students take turns and roll a die, moving their counter that many spaces.
If they land on a number they refer to their spelling list and look, cover, say, spell, check the word.
If students land on AG (activity grid) they choose and complete a task from the activity grid.

So, as you can see there is no end of possibilities when it comes to creating your own board games. These ideas are just the beginning! So, head to our Blank Board Games collection and get creative!

For those times when DIY board games feel too hard, head our huge collection of math games and phonics games. You’ll find an extensive collection of teaching resources that include whole class and group games, board games, bingo, and blank templates.