Fall Classroom Games

Thirty fall games for grades 1–5 fill this printable book, arranged in five color-coded sections of six. Every game except the trivia round fits on a single page, and most need nothing beyond a pencil or crayons.

What the five sections hold

Word play (games 1–6). A word search with 18 words hidden across, down, diagonally and backwards; a word scramble with a clue under each jumbled word; a criss-cross fit-in grid; a number cipher that spells out a joke; an acrostic; and three word ladders.

Puzzle lab (7–12). A squirrel maze, a sudoku that uses six fall pictures instead of numbers, an I-spy counting page, a color-by-number, a 1-to-40 dot-to-dot and a three-friend logic grid.

Whole class (13–18). The bingo caller sheet, twelve silent charades cards at 90 seconds each, eight would-you-rather pairs, a this-or-that page, an 18-item scavenger hunt that also works from a classroom window, and 20 trivia questions in four rounds of five, with a team score sheet.

Write and reflect (19–24). Two fill-in-the-blank word stories (a giant pumpkin at the school fair, and an orchard field trip that goes wrong), a fall bucket list with two blank lines for the class to add to, a gratitude page of leaves to write in, six story starters and an “All About My Autumn” page.

Make and decorate (25–30). A harvest wreath to color, four bookmarks, desk name tents, door hangers, a paper pumpkin built from eight strips, and a roll-and-draw scarecrow.

Picking a game for the moment

The how-to page at the front sorts the games by situation. Games 15, 16 and 30 fill five spare minutes. Games 1–12 are quiet seatwork. Bingo, charades and trivia are the noisy ones. For a substitute folder it suggests games 1, 2, 7, 17 and 21, which need no explaining, and it flags games 3, 4, 6 and 12 as the ones that will stretch older students.

Printing and supplies

Print at 100% with “fit to page” switched off, or the cut lines on the craft pages get trimmed. Run class sets from the black-and-white edition. Plain paper is fine for most pages, and the pack suggests card stock for the bookmarks, name tents, door hangers and paper pumpkin. The pumpkin needs a split pin or a stapler, and the scarecrow page needs one die. The answer keys sit together on pages 35–37, so they are easy to print on their own and keep at your desk. Many of the puzzle pages can go into a sheet protector with a dry-erase marker and be reused at a center.

Questions

Will it work for first graders?

Partly. The how-to page names the games that suit grades 1–2 (games 1, 2, 7, 9, 10, 11, 13, 22 and 25–30). The rest are pitched at grades 3–5.

How much cutting is there?

Only on the pages marked for it, such as the charades cards, the bingo caller slips and cards, and the craft pages at the end of the book.