Each of these games or activities can be completed in about 5 minutes, and while you can use them as fillers, they’re all genuinely educational as well. Each of these games can be played from kindergarten all the way up through high school students in large or small classes.

These activities are all designed to be simple, easy to remember, and used on the fly, such as when you have five minutes left at the end of class or when you need a quick transitional activity before starting the next part of the lesson.

1. First Person To…

This easy, fun game is a great attention-getter. Simply shout out, “First person to…” and insert a simple action, such as “…show me a stuffed animal. / …get out a marker. / …point to the exit sign. / …empty their backpack. / …look at me upside down.” or whatever creative action you can think of. The first person to do the action can get a point for his or her row or team. Or you can just give out high-fives for little kids. It’s easy to use this game as a vocabulary review simply by using the words the students have learned recently in class. Did the students just learn “space” vocabulary? Try shouting, “First person to… mime zero gravity. / …act like an alien. / …find a star. / …show me a control panel. / …point to the classroom telescope. / etc.”

2. What’s missing?

Put a bunch of flashcards or objects at the front of the classroom where the students can see them. Tell the students to close their eyes. Remove one (or a few objects/flashcards). Tell students to open their eyes. Ask them what’s missing. Repeat.

3. Catch and Answer

Get a funny stuffed animal before class. If you don’t have a stuffed animal, just crumple up a ball of paper or use a hat or whatever you have on hand. Ask a question. Throw the “ball” at a student and that person must answer. If they don’t know the answer or get it wrong, then let them throw the ball back to you, and then you throw the ball to another person to answer. If they’re correct, then throw the “ball” back to the original student and ask them to repeat the correct answer. It’s funny to watch younger students scramble to get the ball, and older students scramble to avoid it. Repeat with several questions and ball throws.

4. Brainstorm Board Race

There are so many ways to turn brainstorming into a fun activity. 

1. You can simply give students a topic and explain that everyone in the class must write at least one thing on the board before they can sit down. Let everyone stand up and go write. (It’s okay if the brainstorm looks chaotic.)
2. You can assign teams and a writer to each team. The teams must sit down and shout their ideas to the writer who is standing at the board. The team that writes the most ideas in a designated amount of time wins.
3. You can assign teams and give each team a different topic. Let the teams brainstorm, write their ideas on the board, and the team with the most ideas for their topic in a certain amount of time wins.
4. You can put a topic on the board, assign teams, give each team a different colored whiteboard marker, and explain that each person from each team must write one idea but they cannot write the same idea as someone else, and only one person from each team may be standing at the board at a time. The winner is the first team to finish with no duplicating topics.

5. Guess the Vocabulary

An easy 5 minute activity is for the teacher to just try to get the students to guess/remember recent vocabulary words. Do a mix of activities to keep students focused. Draw a picture on the board. Mime the word. Act out a scene that describes the word. Point to an example in the room. Get a student to participate in an action with you. Make a short list of examples. You can give points or high-fives for students who raise their hand and guess the word. Quick, easy, and a great review!

6. Read a Story

Everyone loves to hear stories. For little kids, whip out a picture book and read it. For older kids, choose an age-appropriate chapter book and read a little bit everyday. 

While you can choose a book that has to do with what the class is learning, reading for fun has value too, so read whatever you think your class will find funny or interesting. (If you don’t have access to physical books, there are plenty of free picture books online which you can project onto the board, or you can download a book onto your phone/tablet and read it from there.)

7. Line Up

This ESL classic is a classic for a reason. It’s a great brain break and gives students the opportunity to work as a team. Give students a random order that they have to line up in (in order of age, height, alphabetical order by first name, who arrived in the classroom first, hair length, etc.). After they’ve lined up, check that they’ve done it correctly. You can change the topics a few times. If you want to make lining up very challenging, you can ask students to do it silently.

8. Stand up, Sit down

Stand up = True. Sit down = False. The teacher makes some statements and if the statement is true, the students stand up. If it’s false, they sit down. It’s a quick simple game you can use for a fast review. You can also throw in some funny sentences to keep students on their toes, such as sentences about yourself, the classroom, or your students and see how much they know about each other.

9. Erase the Board

This activity is best at the end of class when teachers typically have a board filled with things like grammar notes, vocabulary words, pronunciation notes, etc. Point to something on the board and ask students a question about it. “Who can pronounce this word correctly? Who can give me a sentence using future continuous? Who remembers what a “satellite” is?” If a student raises their hand and answers the question correctly, then the teacher can erase the word/sentence from the board. When everything is erased, end class. If you do this often enough, students will notice that they get a few extra minutes of break time if they get you to erase the board quickly, so they’ll be very motivated to remember whatever is written on the board and answer as fast as they can. (If you can’t let your students leave class early, you can still “end class” early, but just ask students to do something in their seats, like have a quiet chat with neighbors, work on homework, read, draw a picture, etc.)

10. Stand Up Categories

Give students a category related to what they’re learning in class. Ask them all to stand up. They can’t sit down until they’ve told you a word that fits into the category. They can’t repeat a word someone else has said. If you want this game to be organized, make students raise their hands before saying their word. If you don’t mind a little chaos and want the game to go much quicker, let students shout out their words. If two people shout the same thing, they have to remain standing, but if people shout out different things, all those people can sit down. 

If you want more games for your classroom try 15 No-Prep Time-Killer Games for Large Classes or 10 Active TEFL Games for Getting Kids Up and Moving.