Engage students in a game of charades. On pieces of paper, write the names of animals, people or anything else you want students to act out. Fold the papers and place them in a hat. Each table in the lunchroom operates as a team. Pull out a piece of paper from the hat and act out what appears on the paper. The table with the students who guess what you are acting out earns a point and gets to select a member from its team to be the next actor in the game. Continue playing; the team that earns the most points wins the game.
Play a game of Simon Says with the kids. Divide students into groups and have an adult lead each group. Adults start the game, calling out actions for students to mimic -- ensuring that each action starts with, "Simon says." If a child performs an action that Simon didn't say (for instance, the adult simply says, "Touch your nose"), she must sit out. Continue playing the game, saying the actions faster as you progress through the game. The last student standing wins the game.
This game is meant for individual tables. One student from each table begins by saying, "My father owns a grocery store and he sells (something that begins with the letter "A"). The next person repeats the opening line, repeats the item the person before him stated and adds an item that begins with the letter "B." The game continues in this manner until all the letters of the alphabet have been used. If a child forgets an item on the list, her teammates can offer help. If a student can't remember his line after 15 seconds, he's out of the game but the alphabet order stays the same.
Have kids form groups of four and provide each group with a deck of cards. The cards are shuffled, each player is dealt seven cards and the rest of the cards are placed in a facedown pile between them. To play "Go Fish," children look through their cards to see if they have any matches; if they do, they remove the cards. One player then asks another player if she has a specific card; if the player has the card, he gives it to the player who asked and the person removes the pair of cards from her hand. If the player who was asked doesn't have the card, the child takes a card from the pile. The first player with no cards wins the game.