41 Fun Friday Ideas for the Classroom to End the Week
If you’re looking for some fun Friday ideas for the classroom then this post is for you. I’ll show you fun theme day ideas, brain breaks, and activities that your students will love. Whether you want to have an entire day dedicated to fun Friday or just 20 minutes you’ll find some ideas in this post.
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Ideas for Fun Friday
You and your student are tired at the end of a long week so adding in some fun Friday activities during the day is a great way to get you to the weekend. You may want to add these fun activities as a whole class reward, as an entire day based on a theme or just as a short period of time to give students a brain break.
Many classroom teachers like to have a fun day every first Friday of the month. Whatever you choose I have some ideas for you that will help build your classroom community!
Fun Friday Activities
Do you want to add a few fun activities that your class can do on fun Friday? Read on to find some ideas that your students will love including printable games, arts and crafts, STEM activities and more!
1 | Escape Room Game
This printable escape room game was designed for a classroom and will take about 1 to 2 hours. You can divide the class into three groups and each group will work to solve a piece of the puzzle.
All three answers are needed to solve the mystery and escape the school. All the group members will work to solve puzzles, riddles and do small tasks.
2 | School Friendly Feud Game
Here’s a printable school themed version of Family Feud. You can have students get into small groups to play this fun interactive game where they have to think of the most common answers to school related questions. For example, “name a word that often comes after the word school.”
3 | Scavenger Hunts
Have students answer questions related to a lesson and the answers will lead them to different parts of the classroom or school.
Stem Fun Friday Ideas for the Classroom
Let’s check out some fun STEM activities that you can introduce on Fun Friday.
4 | STEM Building Competitions
Provide students with materials like Legos, Lincoln logs, popsicle sticks, or marshmallows and toothpicks. Give student a time limit and challenge them to create structures. To make it a competition they can try to build the highest or the sturdiest structure with the materials provided.
5 | STEM Stacking Cup Team Challenge
The goal of this team challenge is to build a tall cup tower without touching the plastic cups! Provide each group with a stack of cups and elastic bands joined together as shown in the photo.
Each student holds onto one of the bands to lift the cups. This challenge helps build teamwork and problem-solving skills!
6 | Story Character Bingo
This Bingo games comes with 30 different bingo cards featuring children’s favorite storybook characters! Here’s where you can find this printable bingo set.
7 | Trivia Quizzes
Use Kahoot, Quizizz, or Jeopardy-style games to review material in a fun way. This would be the perfect game to review key facts before a test.
8 | Creative Art and Craft Projects
Have students bring in some recycled materials like toilet paper rolls, or popsicle sticks and do a fun craft project. You could also gather free natural materials like rocks or pinecones for your craft. Check out some fun craft ideas below.
Popsicle Stick Rainbow Art Project
All you need for this easy craft project is popsicle sticks, buttons, googly eyes, construction paper, markers and glue. Let students get creative and make thee adorable rainbows.
Chipmunk Craft Activity
All you need is natural materials and brown construction paper to make this adorable chipmunk. You could take students on a walk outside to gather materials or have them bring some from home!
9 | Classroom Movie Time
Watching a movie as a class is a great way to unwind at the end of the week. Transform your classroom into a movie theater at the end of the day.
Let students sit on the floor and treat them to some popcorn in these movie theater style popcorn bags! You could play a movie that ties in with a recent classroom topic or something just for fun.
Quiet Fun Friday Activities
If your class is extra hyped up and crazy on Fridays here are some ideas to help keep the energy down at the end of the week.
10 | Mindfulness Coloring
Coloring is a great quiet time activity for stress relief and relaxation. You can get a mindfulness coloring book like this with 50 different coloring sheets to share with your class. As students are coloring you could even play some peaceful music.
11 | Flashlight Friday
Flashlight Fridays make quiet reading time so much more fun! What you do is have students each bring in a flashlight.
Then have students grab a good book and their flashlights and get cozy in a spot in the classroom. Tun off the lights and students will use their flashlights to quietly read in the dark.
Fun Friday Brain Breaks
Your students are exhausted by Friday from working so hard in class all week. They may need some extra brain breaks. Here are a few ideas that all involve getting students a little bit of physical activity to get the wiggles out.
12 | Dance Party
Play your students favorite songs and let your students dance around for a few minutes.
13 | Yoga
Lead a mini yoga session with your students. Take this time to teach your class to stretch and do some deep breathing exercises.
14 | Simon Says
If you teach younger students, then play a quick round of Simon says to get them moving.
15 | Charades
Create charade cards based on a learning topic. Students can take turns acting them out. If they guess correctly, they get to act out the next card.
16 | Freeze Dance
Let students dance to the music and freeze when it stops.
17 | Virtual Field Trip
Let your students take a virtual field trip by playing a video of an interesting place like a zoo or a famous monument.
Fun Friday Board Games for the Classroom
Now let’s check out some of the best classroom board games that kids love to add a little fun at the end of your week of learning.
18 | Gravity Maze
Gravity Maze enhances critical thinking and engineering skills and kids have so much fun with it. There are 60 different challenges so your students can play again and again and not get bored!
19 | Scrabble Board Game
Scrabble is a classic game that will help enhance vocabulary skills. The tile lock version works great for school because you don’t have to worry about kids accidentally bumping it and tiles flying all over your class!
20 | Guess in 10 Space Game
This is the ultimate classroom guessing games that students can play in pairs or in teams. How it works is one student will get a game card, and other students can ask 10 questions to guess what it is.
This would be the perfect game to introduce during your outer space unit! You can find this Guess in 10 game here.
21 | Connect Four
Connect 4 is a classic strategy game that kids love and is easy for them to learn how to play. You can find this game here.
22 | Classroom Strategy Game Blokus
Blokus is a fun strategy game that promotes outside of the box thinking and is easy for students to play. You can find this game here.
Entire Day Fun Friday Classroom Ideas
Now let’s check out some ideas to have an entire day dedicated to fun Friday! I’ll show you some ideas below including theme days and dress up days.
Fun Friday Theme Day
You may want to add to your list of possible entire classroom rewards a fun Friday theme day. You can let students vote on what the theme will be! Read on to check out some fun theme ideas that your students will love.
23 | Candy Land Theme
Would your students love a candy land theme day? Copy this idea from kindergarten teacher Kayla.
Her class spent the day crafting candies, designing candy shops and mapping out their own Candy Lands. Students even got to make mini candy salads!
24 | Secret Agent Friday
Your students would love if you copied this idea from first grade teacher, Karey. Her students got to be spies and solved the case of the missing number. Students got secret de-coding pens and got clues to help solve the mystery.
25 | Target Theme Day
I love this idea from 5th grade teacher Joanne. She turned her classroom into Target to tie in her adding and subtracting unit with money counting. She made QR codes on the play food for students to scan to solve word problems!
If you want an idea that let’s your students have a blast while working on math skills look no further! She even created a mini Starbucks in her classroom to go with the theme. Would your students have fun with a Target classroom for a day?
26 | Fun Friday Dress Up Day
Assign a theme like “Superheroes,” “Pajama Day,” or “Sports Day” and encourage students to dress up.
27 | Favorite Book Character Day
Have students come dressed as a favorite book character and share why they chose it.
Outdoor Fun Friday Ideas for the Classroom
If the weather permits take your students outside to get some fresh air and get moving. Here are some outdoor activities that your students will have fun with.
Play an Outdoor Game
Here are some outdoor game ideas that students love:
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28 | Capture the Flag
- 29 | Relay Races
- 30 | Kick Ball
- 31 | Freeze Tag
32 | Nature Walk
You can tie a nature walk to a recent science lesson and have students looks for plants, animals or insects.
33 | Talent Show or Open Mic
Allow students to showcase talents like singing, dancing, or reading a poem they created.
34 | Pencil Cookie Making
Have students help make these adorable pencils cookies. All you need is vanilla wafers, chocolate chips, pink and white frosting and plastic butter knives. Students can develop fine motor skills as they cut the top of the wafers at an angle to create the triangle shaped pencil top.
Then they’ll add white frosting to the top and then a chocolate chip. For the eraser have students add pink frosting to the bottom.
Minute to Win It Games
Create short, timed challenges for students to complete. Here are some fun classroom minute-to-win-it games that kids love:
35 | Cereal Sort
- This would be a good game for younger students that are working on fine motor skills.
- Objective: Sort a mixed bowl of cereal by color.
- Materials: Bowls, colorful cereal.
36 | Straw Race
- Objective: Blow through a straw to push a cotton ball or paper ball across a table to a finish line.
- Materials: Straws, cotton balls.
37 | Balloon Keep-Up
- Objective: Keep a balloon in the air for a full minute using only your breath or head.
- Materials: Balloons.
- Variation: Add a second balloon for older kids.
38 | Chopstick Challenge
- Objective: Transfer as many small items (e.g., marshmallows, candies) from one bowl to another using chopsticks.
- Materials: Chopsticks, small items, bowls.
Classroom Reward Ideas
Friday is the perfect time to reflect on behavior for the week. If it is great the class may have earned a fun Friday reward. Here are some ideas for class rewards.
39 | Student of the Week
Recognize a student’s achievements and let them choose a fun activity to do on Friday.
40 | Extra Recess
Reward the entire class with an extra recess on Friday if they have been on task all week.
41 | 20 or 30 Minutes of Free Time
Students can choose what to do with their extra free time.
Hope you found tons of fun Friday ideas for the classroom. Feel free to save your favorite ideas to your Pinterest boards. To do that just click on the picture and then the P and choose your board.
If you liked this post here are some more to check out-
50 Fun Indoor Classroom Games for the Entire Class or Recess
21 Best Classroom Reading Games to Make Learning Fun
35 Fun Icebreaker Games for the Elementary Classroom
65 Best Classroom Ideas: Creative Ideas for Teachers
21 Our Class is a Family Activities to Create Classroom Community