10 Best Group Games for Elementary Kids

Group games in education have numerous advantages. They are excellent means of developing children’s cognitive and interpersonal skills.

When children play together, they interact with their peers while developing their emotional and communication skills.

With group games, children broaden their horizons and become attuned to inclusivity. Moreover, when children are playing collaborative learning is also enhanced.

Collaborative learning has long played a vital role in the classroom. And it can help children increase their engagement in different learning activities.

In this post, we’ll talk about the best group games for elementary kids so they will know how to work effectively and get along with others well.

Best Group Games for Elementary Kids

Playing can help build moments for children. The games can keep them engaged and excited to be in school. Specifically, group games can help children foster good relationships and establish friendships.

With that, let’s dive into the best group games for elementary kids that you can do both indoors and outdoors.

Engage your pupils creatively and let them have fun.

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Outdoor Games for Elementary

1. Catch the Dragon’s Tail

Who doesn’t love the excitement and lots of energy?  This outdoor game is very straightforward, and you won’t need any supplies to have fun.

Children will just create a long chain or line without breaking it. You will need 10 or more players.

Because the game requires a vast area or space, this game is best suited outdoors.

How to play:

1. Children will form a lengthy human chain and put their hands on the shoulders or waist of the one in front of them. So, everyone lines up and places their hands around the waist of the player in front of them.
2. The child in front serves as the dragon’s head and the child at the rear end is the dragon’s tail.
3. The child who is standing last or the dragon’s tail folds one end of the handkerchief inside his back pocket and the dragon’s head should attempt to catch the dragon’s tail (handkerchief). Those who are in the middle serve as the body and should attempt to halt the head without breaking the line.
4. The child who is the dragon’s head must try to catch the dragon’s tail while pulling the rest of the dragon along with it.
5. Children should be instructed not to break the line.
6. When the head catches the tail, the dragon’s tail player gets the post of the dragon’s head.
7. Everyone slides back one place in line.

Significance of the Game

The Catch the Dragon’s Tail Game encourages children to think strategically to build speed and dexterity. Although it’s much more appropriate for higher grade levels, still you can make your elementary children enjoy it. Just be quick and clear with instructions so they won’t be pushing and nudging.

The game creates a pleasant atmosphere while improving agility and quickness. In addition, it develops the children’s listening skills as they should listen to the mechanics of the game.

All in all, it’s a good physical coordination exercise that also establishes communication and social skills.

2. Alphabet Scavenger Hunt

Going on a scavenger hunt is an excellent way to engage children in active learning. This is a fun and challenging hunt in nature.

How to play:

1. Prepare a printable Alphabet Scavenger Hunt.
2. Form small groups of children.
3. Send the children where you’d like them to hunt. Make sure the location has been checked initially for safety purposes.
4. Let the children bring a pencil, clipboard, and a printed Alphabet Scavenger Hunt sheet.
5. Have them list what they can find following the letters in the alphabet.
6. You can also make your creative modifications to the game by instructing the children to bring baskets for them to collect the items they hunt or allow them to take pictures of those items.

Significance of the Game

Children will learn new things while engaging in an Alphabet Scavenger Hunt. Aside from honing their linguistic skills, alphabet hunting outdoors improves their physical stamina and cognitive aspects.

As children wander into the lush greens for treasures and clues in groups, they mingle and learn to get along with their peers. Thus, their interpersonal and communication skills are also developed.

Moreover, this outdoor scavenger idea will encourage children to investigate and discover new things. In addition, the hunting game improves their observation skills and memory. Thus, it assists your children in making independent observations.

3. Pool Noodle Obstacle Course

Here’s another delightful activity that children love. I’m sure they’ll have a great time racing around the awesome pool noodle obstacle course. Perfect for preschoolers and toddlers, this exciting game gives meaning to the beautiful spring and summer.

With a pinch of your creativity, pool noodles can create a fun ground obstacle course for your children. Break the monotony of activities in the classroom by bringing the fun into the outdoors.

How to play:

1. First, you have to prepare the needed materials like pool noodles duct tape yard, bean bags soccer balls. Meanwhile, if children can already help you make the desired arcs and hoops, then consider them do so.
2. Then, create as many course pieces as you want, and establish the rules.
3. To make it more challenging, you can use a timer to help identify the winners.
4. You can make it a team game or individual competition. So, you can break the class into several teams.
5. Prepare a unique name for the competition to make it more exciting.
6. Let the fun begin.

Significance of the game

With this activity, you can instill a sense of healthy competition in children. You can also integrate good values like respect, resilience, and patience.

Also, with your creative course pieces like agility rings and hoops in the air, you can help develop children’s agility skills. Furthermore, as they jump, walk, skip,  hop, run, and crawl, children tend to develop gross motor skills.

As you give children a lot of time to enjoy this physical activity on school grounds, you are helping them develop closeness with peers, teamwork, and most importantly, their body strength and confidence. At a young age, children can recognize that it’s essential for living a healthy lifestyle.

4. Critter Quest

Critter quest is a quest. Just imagine how kids investigate and search for lovely creatures. Kids love the little wonders of nature such as insects, caterpillars, worms, and many more.

How would you love the idea of having your kids inspire their curiosity outdoors?

Now, let’s do critter hunting!

How to play:

It’s more of an exploration adventure, so you’re free to create your own rules. As long as you secure the safety of the kids, they’re good to go investigating the bugs!

Since you’re to promote outdoor exploration, you may require the kids to bring items that can help them look closer to insects, such as a hand lens, magnifying lid, or a portable microscope.

1. Go with the kids as they head out to the great outdoors of the school. Facilitate discovery by instructing the kids to observe in close detail nature’s creepy crawlies.
2. Let them bring a small activity notebook for them to write on their observations to be shared with the rest of the class.
3. Tell them to keep an eye out for extraordinary little creatures on the ground, in the bush, and on the leaves of plants.
4. As for me, when I have this with my students, the winner is the one who has identified a more significant number of insects.

Significance of the game

Young children rarely stay in one place for an extended period. The successful search for tiny critters, on the other hand, helps children develop their time to perceive and practice self-control, as well as their detective skills.

Children must be resilient and patient while digging and waiting for small friends to appear. As children search for and learn about small animals, they develop their inquisitiveness and connection to the natural world, as well as compassion for the small creatures with which they share their environment.

5. Hula Hoop Hop

Hula hooping is fun. It’s one of the best physical exercises for kids. Pediatric physical therapists even recommend it as a rehabilitation process. Indeed, hula hooping is quite helpful, especially to children who are less physically fit.

But, of course, everyone can enjoy it! So, let’s do the hula hoop!

How to play:

1. Require the children to wear tight-fitting shirts and pants aside from their comfortable shoes.
2. Children should remove their bracelets or any jewelry that might get entangled in the hula hoop.
3. When everything is set, you can have it as an individual or team scoring game.
4. As they firmly spin the hoop on their waist either clockwise or counterclockwise, that is counted as one point and so on.
5. Tally the scores and the team with the biggest points or greatest number of spins wins!

Significance of the game

Children can learn to squirm their hips on purpose, separate their two sides, increase the range of motion in all of their large joints, and have fun while doing it. Hula hooping can be a new hobby for children and it requires practice and focus, as anyone who has attempted to do so can attest.

Essentially, hula hooping is a full-body exercise, it can be done with your whole body and not just at the waist, as commonly seen. Hence, it’s a good activity for children especially when you make modifications and turn it into a competitive game.

Additionally, hula hooping improves hand and eye coordination and increases focus as well.  Aside from making it a game for children, this aerobic exercise and the rhythmic hoops can help in relaxation and de-stressing; thus concentration or attention is enhanced. We know how important these things are, especially to our students who need to learn how to increase concentration in class.

Indoor Games for Elementary

The cold chilly winter can make children uneasy in the classroom. You need to inject fun so they can still be as productive as they can be. Hence, you should bring the fun indoors by allowing young learners to play indoor games.

These fun indoor games can transform the classroom into the best space for children. Create moments in the classroom with the following indoor games for elementary.

While these games are amusing, these activities inside the classroom can help children get moving, enhance their social skills, foster learning, and boost their confidence.

Meet your preferred activity by scrolling down!

1. Card Memory Game

Here’s to your children. It’s a fantastic game that helps boost memory and cognitive faculty. All you need is a deck of playing cards or flashcards with pictures or text on them.

Place the card (have a specific number) let’s say 10 perhaps, face down on a table. Then, give the children five minutes to memorize them.

2. Freeze Dance

Dancing is everybody’s skill. Our children love to dance and show their best moves. The Freeze Dance will be an enjoyable activity in the classroom.

Children will be instructed to dance along to a piece of groovy music and when it stops, they should freeze and shout something. Let’s say, ‘ Study’ ‘Write’ ‘Laugh’ and so on.

3. Hopscotch

Here’s a classic childhood game that everyone loves. Hopscotch has been here for centuries. It has been one of the favorite past times of children and even adults.

The ultimate rule: Don’t land on a line!

Typically, hopscotch is a good exercise. The movements of the body like hopping, jumping, bending, and so on builds a good activity that makes children move and keep going. It’s a game that requires both physical and mental balance.  And hopping on one foot enhances balance, physical coordination, and cognitive development.

4. Pictionary

An expressway of honing vocabulary skills is through Pictionary. This picture-based word game offers creative opportunities to children for cognitive development.

Aside from being so fun to play, Pictionary is also a way of establishing teamwork and collaboration among children.

Children can use visuals to grasp vocabulary words or concepts in this educational game. Through this game, you can help children gain greater knowledge of a word’s meaning by asking them to draw their interpretation of it.

5. Red Light, Green Light

With some modifications, you can play Red Light, and Green light both indoors and outdoors. It’s super fun while helping kids develop their listening and agility skills.

This game highly emphasizes observation skills in the players. The ultimate rule of the game is to move quickly and securely while making sure that everyone understands what happens if they move on a Red Light.

Simply put, Green Light means ‘GO’, and Red Light means ‘STOP’.

Importance of Games to Children

Undoubtedly, educators are aware of the power of play. Hence, educational games are integrated into the curriculum.

One of the best ways to help your children develop into inquisitive, imaginative, energetic, and cheerful adults with the capabilities they need is to give them lots of opportunities to play.

According to research, games can help kids become more organized, plan, get along with peers, and control their emotions.

Most importantly, the play also improves the literacy, numeracy, and social abilities of children. Over and above, play can help kids deal with stress.

In other words, educational games or play are important for a child’s growth and health more than just as an opportunity to have fun.

The various forms of play, both indoors and outdoors, such as the ones enumerated above, have a significant positive impact on a child’s growth and development, body, and quality of life.

Ready, Set, Go!

Play is a key part of childhood. And playful learning helps the child to be actively engaged and become more motivated. Typically, it’s a wonderful way of helping children discover the world!

Similarly, group games in elementary have helped teachers enhance the development of young children. Thus, no matter how tight school schedules are, as a teacher, you should create a plan that integrates games into your lessons.

Share the excitement of playing with your children today!

Ready, set, go!