Fun Review Games to Prepare Your Students for a Test

Jeopardy is a classic test review game lesson plan to play with students. Although there are now online versions of Jeopardy that you can personalize, many teachers prefer creating their own Jeopardy set. For example, they might draw a grid on the board with several topics that correlate to the information that will be on the test. Then they would place pieces of construction paper on the board, with a dollar value from $100-$500 on one side, and a corresponding question on the other. They would then break students into teams and allow one student from the first team to choose a question and answer. Make sure to keep score, and to cheer both teams on!

Do you have several different topics that you’ll be testing? For example, you might have covered several different historical periods, several different biological processes, or several different pieces of literature. If so, create a wheel of topics by using a large piece of posterboard, a paper fastener, and a paper arrow. Attach the arrow to the posterboard so that your students can spin it around, and create several different categories that the arrow might land on. Divide your class into teams, and have one team spin the wheel. You can then ask the student a question from that topic.

Note: Even if you don’t think that you’ve taught several different topics, you can usually find some way to divide up your questions. For example, in a history class, you might divide it into “Important People,” “Important Events,” “Causes and Effects,” and “Which Came First?”

You can also try downloading a game from online, such as “Who Wants to Be a Winner?” You can personalize this game or others to include information that you’d like to be tested. Of course, this game would only work in a classroom with computer access. Ideally, multiple computers in the classroom would make this even more interactive, as several games could be going on at once, with groups of students watching each game and waiting for their turns.

A test review game lesson plan can help get students interested in reviewing the material, and can also create an atmosphere of teamwork in the classroom. Help kids get hyped up for their test by playing one of these fun games with them.