How to Create Engaging Classroom Activities

Make learning fun & inspire young minds

It’s not always easy to keep a classroom interested in your lesson plan. Whether you’re showing kindergartners the fundamentals of reading or running a lab experiment in AP Biology, students are easily distracted—and the rise of smartphones and endless streaming entertainment has only made it harder to keep their attention.

More than ever, teachers need stimulating classroom activities to cut through these distractions and engage their students. These five strategies will help you do just that.

Learn more about how Walmart Business can help you today.

5 strategies for creating engaging classroom activities

1. Keep the core lesson in mind

Not every form of engagement is educational. Sure, you could show your kids movies or play simple classroom games, but does that contribute to your overall goals for the school year? Before planning any student activities in classroom settings, ask yourself what you want your students to learn from it. Use that lesson as a guiding principle and build from there.

That said, don’t take fun and games off the table. Many activities, such as trivia contests and scavenger hunts, can be modified to suit your lesson plan. Addition and multiplication may not be the most playful topics, but work those equations into a game of math baseball and just watch your students perk up. When you put a clear lesson at the core of these activities, you show your students that learning something new can be exciting and fun.

2. Show, don’t tell

Not everyone absorbs information the same way. Using visual aids in the classroom is another way to engage your students while keeping the core lesson in mind. Find ways to illustrate your points and make them easier to absorb. This could mean pulling up maps on the projector during geography class, using pie charts to explain percentages and so on—you’re only limited by your imagination.

3. Use real-world examples

It’s the complaint teachers have heard throughout the ages: “When am I ever going to use this in real life?” Students sometimes have trouble connecting with abstract concepts that don’t have clear use cases, so pull in real-world examples to make your lessons more relatable.

For example, if you’re teaching math, let the numbers represent things that are important to them. How many weeks of allowance do they need to save to buy a new video game? If you’re explaining historical events that happened centuries ago, can you point out why they’re still important today?

Connecting your classroom lessons with relatable concepts is known as authentic learning, and it helps your students develop critical thinking skills while remaining interested. Keep this in mind for particularly complex topics and find ways to make them more applicable to your students’ day-to-day lives.

4. Take breaks

Incorporating downtime into your lessons may seem like the opposite of making your classroom more engaging, but according to the American Psychological Association, taking breaks can be beneficial to students. Not everyone in your class is going to have the same attention span, so the APA recommends breaking “work sessions and lectures into short chunks to help with sustained focus.”

When you’re planning classroom activities, think about natural pauses in the lesson plan and use those opportunities to take breaks. Give your students a minute or two to clear their heads and center their thoughts. This way, learning feels like an energetic sprint, not a grueling marathon.

5. Get moving

Sometimes, a little movement is exactly what you need to make your class more engaging. According to Jenny Vo, a veteran teacher with more than two decades of experience, “It is unreasonable to expect [students] to sit quietly throughout their lessons and classwork. Movement throughout the day helps students to re-energize their bodies and their brains, helping them to focus and concentrate better.”

That said, you don’t have to make every lesson a class trip. Instead, plan interactive classroom activities that give students a chance to move around and use their bodies. Vo suggests adding gestures or motions to vocabulary words or important concepts, creating connections between the lesson and the physical action behind it. You can also use the spaces available to you, like a gym or empty auditorium, to give your class a change of scenery.

Create engaging classroom activities with Walmart Business

No matter how you choose to inspire creative learning and engage your students, Walmart Business can help. Our selection of classroom supplies is the ideal complement to your lesson plan, whether you’re teaching kindergartners or high schoolers.

If your school already uses Walmart Business, administrators should consider saving even more money and time with a Walmart Business+ membership. You’ll get free shipping,¹  speedy free delivery from local stores on orders over $35² and 2% back in Walmart Business Rewards so you can invest even more in your students.³ That could add up to over $500 in savings a year!⁴ Learn more here.

¹ Excludes most Marketplace items, freight and certain location surcharges.

² Restrictions apply. 

³ Rewards can only be used toward future purchases on Walmart Business. Additional terms apply.

⁴ Savings based on 1 free $35+ delivery order vs. $9.95 fee and 1 free shipping order under $35 vs. $6.99 fee biweekly, plus 2% Walmart Business Rewards on monthly order >$250 (average value of $400).