Explore 7 Proxy Wars & Regional Conflicts review games designed by a teacher to engage students and reinforce curriculum. When students are having fun, they forget they are reviewing, making games a great way to practice Social Studies.

• The BIG TERRIBLE Game keeps the whole class involved as up to eight teams answer together and watch their scores swing above and below zero.
• Turn review into a classroom battle with GRUDGEBALL, where correct answers earn attacks and successful baskets give teams extra shots at their opponents.
• In TRASHKETBALL™, students compete to answer questions quickly and correctly to earn chances to shoot and score for their team.
• In BUMP, correct answers earn students shots at the platform, where they can score even more points by bumping off opposing teams.
• SCOOT combines review with movement as students rotate between desks and work their way through a set of topic-specific task cards.
• Keep students on their toes with FRAZZLED, where every answer can reveal points, help the opposing team, or uncover a bomb that resets the score to zero.
• The TERRIBLE Game makes review wonderfully terrible as teams answer questions, uncover unpredictable scores, and use positive and negative points to get closest to zero.

A good review game can completely change the energy in the classroom and get students excited to practice what they’ve learned. Before long, students are cheering, discussing answers, and asking to play again—even when their team didn’t win. The real change happens when students start looking ahead to the next game and realize that the more prepared they are, the better their chances of winning.

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.