Explore 14 Indian Ocean Trade review games designed by a teacher to engage students and reinforce curriculum. Give students a break from worksheets and bring Social Studies review to life with a classroom game.

• SCOOT combines review with movement as students rotate between desks and work their way through a set of topic-specific task cards.
• The TERRIBLE Game adds strategy to review as correct answers uncover positive or negative points that can help your team or hurt your opponents.
• In GRUDGEBALL, teams answer questions to fire on their opponents’ ships, then make baskets to earn even more shots.
• In BUMP, correct answers earn students shots at the platform, where they can score even more points by bumping off opposing teams.
• In FRAZZLED, teams answer questions to uncover mystery points, but one wrong answer or unlucky bomb can completely change the game.
• Turn review into an unpredictable whole-class competition with The BIG TERRIBLE Game, where every answer can send a team’s score in the right or wrong direction.
• TRASHKETBALL™ gets teams racing to answer correctly, then rewards them with shots at the trash can to score points.

Turning review into a game is one of my favorite ways to get students participating without making practice feel like more work. The competition gets students paying attention to every question, communicating with their team, and getting genuinely excited when the answer is revealed. Over time, that excitement carries beyond the game itself, as students start preparing because they want their team to have a better chance of winning next time.

And it isn’t just something I’ve seen in my own classroom—research has found significant learning benefits from using educational games with students. See the research.