On rainy days, use your classroom map to come up with fun and educational games. Ask students to come up and point to the country, state and city that they are from. Ask them where the North and South Poles are located. Ask them what a compass tells you. It is best to tailor the questions to what the children are learning in their history or geography classes at that particular time. You can turn this into a game by keeping track of points on the board--for example, for each question answered correctly, the team gets one point. Assign teams by simply splitting the room in half.
Ball games are an outdoor activity for those days when it is warm and sunny. Learning coordination is important along with the learning that children do in the classroom. It also prepares children for sports teams. Games such as kickball or dodgeball can be help them grasp how to aim, throw, kick and catch. Another ball game is "Clean Your Backyard." For this game, set up approximately 10 soft cloth balls along the center line of your gym or blacktop. On the whistle, the children run to the line and throw the balls onto the side of the other team. The objective is to get as many of the balls out of your "backyard" and into the "backyard" of the other team. When the teacher blows the whistle and counts how many balls are in each "backyard," the team with fewer balls is announced as the winner.
To supplement reading class, ask the children to act out a book that they had to read in the class. Choose enough books so that there are enough characters for everyone to participate. Each book represents a team. The children are awarded points for how well they understand and convey the character. This doesn't need to be overly complicated and difficult--it can be a very simple representation of the book. At the end, if you would like, give some sort of the prize to all of the teams.
Some basic favorite classroom games include Simon Says, Telephone, Name That Word and Silent Ball. These games all help to build listening, team-building and comprehension skills. For Simon Says, the students must follow everything that the teacher says to do, as long as he has started with the phrase "Simon Says...". For Telephone, the teacher comes up with a phrase and tells it to the first student in the circle. Then this phrase gets whispered to each person in the circle to see if it is still the same by the end. For Name That Word, have three students go out in the hall for a minute while you tell the class what the special word will be. Then, bring the three students back into the room, and have everyone else in the class give one-word clues until the three students can guess what the word is. For Silent Ball, the children silently throw around a soft ball or a bean bag. Students are disqualified by making noise of any kind, dropping the ball or trying to interfere with the ball. The winner is the last one standing.