8 Fun Whiteboard Games That Your Children Will Love

Whiteboard games are fun, and many children can play on them with you! They bring a lot of variety to play, and these days, whiteboards are magnetic, so just stick them onto your refrigerator, or a magnetic surface in your classroom and begin play! Here are just a few whiteboard games that your kids will go gaga over:

1. Tic Tac Toe

Believe it or not, games that involved three-in-a-row boards actually have their roots in ancient Egypt, where these boards have been discovered on roofing tiles dating as way back as 1300 BCE. The very first variations of tic-tac-toe were played by many in the Roman Empire, around the first century BC.

This game, also known as “Noughts & Crosses” has enthralled children for its mere simplicity. All that’s needed are 9 blocks simply made by drawing a grid – 2 lines down and 2 lines across. Then each child chooses either “noughts (O)” or “crosses (X),” and play begins!

It can be played by 1 parent or teacher and 1 child, 2 children, or even a team of players representing the noughts or crosses. A player, or team, wins once 3 noughts or 3 crosses appear in a row, either vertically, diagonally or horizontally!

2. Hangman

This is a game best played with a group of children. It originated somewhere between the 18^th and 19^th century.  A word is created by a teacher, parent or child, and dashes are placed representing the number of letters the word contains.

Then, each child has a turn guessing what letters fill those dashes. If a child guesses the wrong letter, i.e., a letter that is not part of the word, a part of the hangman is drawn, for example his face, or the actual noose itself.  If the word is correctly guessed, all letters are placed on the dashes and the child or team of children win. If the word isn’t guessed, a hangman is drawn and “dies” by the noose.

The game does have ominous tones as it is to do with hanging and death, but children don’t really think about that, and just see it as a fun game to play.

3. Happy Homophones

In this game homophones are used. Homophones are a group of words that all sound very similar to one another, such as rain and reign or knight and night. The teacher or parent then uses the homophone in a sentence that she or he has written on the white board, and the child has to circle the correct word.

The child that has circled the most correct words wins the game. Another version of the game is to put a speed limit on the game, and see how quickly the child or children can guess the correct homophone.

4. Name Dash

This game is usually only played by two people. It can be played by two children, or a parent or teacher and a child. However, it can also be played by a group of children in a classroom as well. The parent or teacher makes a grid using only dots going vertically and horizontally, and the game can begin.

Each child makes a dash connecting two dots. Then the next person makes a dash connecting any other two dots. Eventually dashes will be joined at 90 and 180-degree angles.   

Every person has their turn, and when a box is formed from all the dashes, the first letter of the name of the person who created that closed box is placed within the box. For example, an “L” will be placed in the closed box if the person who created it is called Lucy.

Once all the dots are connected, you have to count the first letter of each person’s name within the boxes, and the person with the most letters of their first name within the grid of boxes wins.