Explore 7 The Bank War review games designed by a teacher to engage students and reinforce curriculum. Turn Social Studies review into a game and give students a reason to get excited about showing what they know.

• 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.
• In The BIG TERRIBLE Game, every team answers every question and earns unpredictable positive or negative points while trying to finish closest to zero.
• In GRUDGEBALL, teams answer questions to fire on their opponents’ ships, then make baskets to earn even more shots.
• 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 gets students out of their seats and moving around the classroom as they rotate from desk to desk answering task cards.

I’ve always found that students are much more willing to review when they feel like they’re playing instead of studying. 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.

There’s research behind the fun too, with studies finding better academic performance and greater student engagement when games are brought into learning. See the research.