As things get back to normal after almost two years, students are back in classrooms, and teachers are now teaching without screen barriers. However, teachers still need to be careful, and one way to ensure that is through virtual games.
Teachers avoid taking students to field trips and indulge in extracurricular activities to mitigate the chances of spreading any infection. It is necessary for safety, but it impacts students’ engagement and social interactions.
Fortunately, virtual games are a simple solution to this problem. Teachers can host virtual game periods in classrooms to provide students with an engaging and fun environment. They can easily play and learn new things on a Zoom call, Google Meet, or online multiplayer games.
So, let’s check out cool virtual games that you can play with your students today.
Looking for more Math games and ELA games to educate and engage your kids? Here are more online educational games to check out!
12 Fun Yet Educational Virtual Games for Students
Games help create an informal classroom environment to develop better bonds between students and teachers. Playing virtual games can help students learn new things and interact with other students and teachers without stepping outside their homes. Here are some cool virtual games that you can play in your online classroom:
1. Dance and Pause
This game is a virtual version of musical chairs. You can play some music in this game and ask your students to dance their hearts out. You can suddenly pause the music, and then all your students have to stop dancing. However, students who keep dancing even after the music stops will get eliminated from the game. You can keep playing this game until a student remains in the game.
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Try for free2. First Letter, Last Letter
This is an exciting word game that can help you improve the vocabulary and spelling of your students. You have to give an alphabet letter to your student, and they have to name an animal starting with the letter, like D for a dog. After that, the next student will have to use the last letter of the word to name an animal, for example, G for the giraffe. The circle keeps on moving until the student can’t name an animal from the given letter.
3. Pop Up Quiz
The best way to analyze your students’ performance in a fun way is by organizing a virtual pop-up quiz game. You can give a theme to your students for a quiz-like Disney, Math, Harry Potter, etc. You can use different props to make the quiz more interesting, like buzzers, timers, and costumes. Just try to make your virtual quiz as fun as possible for students.
4. Complete a Story
This virtual game can help you stimulate creativity and passion for reading among your students. You can give a line or prompt to students to create a story around it, like a man walking in the city or a girl dancing in the rain. For this game, you can divide your class into smaller groups so that each group can compete with one another to create a beautiful story.
5. Guess Who?
If you want to test your students’ history knowledge, you can create riddles around famous historical personalities. This way, you can make your students learn about famous historical personalities and their achievements. For example, who is a naturalized-French physicist and chemist who researched radioactivity? The student who answers correctly will get a score, and the person with high scores will win the game.
6. Twist Your Tongue
If you want to improve the pronunciation skills of your students, you can host virtual tongue twister games for them. You can give five chances to each student to say a tongue twister ten times as fast as possible. You can create a fun environment in your virtual class and make your students’ speeches clear. Some of the popular tongue twisters are:
- Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers
- Betty Botter bought some butter
- She sells seashells by the seashore
- I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream!
7. Know Your Friends
This simple virtual game will help you build relationships with your students. With this game, your students can learn new things about one another. To play this game, you should ask questions like — “name the friend who has a birthday this month,” “name the friend who likes red colors,” etc.
8. Pictionary
Pictionary is a traditional game that can help to improve students’ creativity and drawing skills. You can make your students share the screen and open the Paint application to draw. You can make the game even more enjoyable by dividing your class into small teams. This will boost team coordination and communication skills among your students.
9. Mimic
This game can help you improve your students’ cognitive and acting skills. You can send guessing prompts to your students via personal chat for this game. And ask a student to turn off his microphone and use gestures or lips to narrate the word to other students. The student who guessed the word right will get a score. You can also divide your class into groups to create a healthy competition.
10. What Would You Do If You Were?
This classic game will help improve your young students’ imagination and decision-making capabilities. In this game, you will give an imaginary position to your students and ask them what they would do if you were in a particular situation, such as what would you do if you were president for one day? These questions will make your students think about new things and situations, leading to a logical and problem-solving mindset.
11. I Spy
You can develop observation skills by sharing puzzle pictures with your students. You can find several puzzle pictures online with different objects and colors. In this game, you have to ask your students to find an object or color in the image. The student who will identify more things mentioned on your list will win this game.
12. Sharp Memory
As the name suggests, this virtual game will help you sharpen your students’ memory. You need to collect a few things and show them to your students via your camera to play this game, like a pen, paper, chocolates, etc. But only show the items for 20 seconds, and then ask your students to list down all the items you have just shown them. Finally, students who write down the most things will win the game.
Parting Remarks
Virtual games are the best way to improve cognitive skills and develop bonds between your students. Especially if lockdown is still prevailing in your country, virtual games can help you create a stress-free environment for your students. So, let’s not hold back any longer and host a virtual game period today.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why are virtual games important?
Virtual games are essential for character development and skill growth among young students. Students learn to communicate and work in a team by playing online games. They also learn to express their emotions and be creative without any judgment. For overall mental and physical development, virtual games are beneficial.
Are online games beneficial to students?
Online games can provide different learning and improvement opportunities to students. Through games, students can learn to write, better pronounce words and express themselves. They can also come out of their inner shell and freely communicate with teachers and other students during a fun game environment.
