Teaching Kinders via Zoom is no easy task, so we’ve compiled a list of fun activities that you can do with your students virtually to keep them engaged and learning! These simple yet community building activities are perfect for early elementary students and teachers!

With distance learning continuing, many teachers have been using Zoom and other conferencing platforms to meet with students. But in kindergarten, activities can be hard and so this is our community list of non academic Zoom Activities for Kinder.

This article works well with these Simply Kinder resources:

These are different activities that are not “academic” but very much build community and work on executive functioning skills that so many kinders need:

• directed drawings
• show-and-tell
• Simon Says
• charades
• rock paper scissors
• Pictionary
• BINGO
• sing songs
• riddles and jokes – you share or they share
• war (have students have a deck of cards and you show yours)
• house or room tours
• eat lunch together
• exercise
• round robin story telling
• freeze dance
• virtual field trips (click here)
• would you rather
• dance party
• theme days like pajama day or hat day
• guess the number (you pick a number, they write it down to guess)

Another fun thing to do is scavenger hunts. This is where you ask your students to find something quickly to show on the camera. Some ideas are:

• hold up a letter and find something that starts with it
• favorite stuffed animal
• something a certain shape or color
• something living or nonliving

Play thumbs up or thumbs down. These would be fun to do with a theme for the day like pets, food, or playing. It does not need to be anything formal, just quick questions they do a thumbs up or thumbs down. Here are some question ideas for that:

• do you like dogs / cats / birds, etc
• do you like chocolate
• have you ever been to the beach
• do you like to play outside
• do you like pepperoni pizza

Or you could just ask them questions and take turns talking on camera. Some ideas for questions are:

• favorite color
• favorite book
• favorite food (or breakfast, lunch, dinner, dessert)
• favorite class memory
• what you want to be when you grow up
• where is your favorite place to go
• favorite animal
• favorite TV show
• favorite song
• how many people are in your family

What games have you played live with your students during distance learning? Comment below so other teachers can share in the fun too.

New to Zoom? Click here for our tutorial for kindergarten teachers.