How to Make Learning Fun and Enjoyable for Your Students

Teaching isn’t just about ensuring your students understand the content—it’s about inspiring them to want to learn. When students are excited about what they’re learning, they’re more likely to actively participate, retain information, and develop a positive attitude towards learning. So how do you spark their interest in learning? Let’s explore some ways to make learning fun and enjoyable for your students. 

Here are 6 ideas to make learning fun

1. Connect learning to real life

“Will I ever use this in real life?” You’ll often hear this when students are learning new material, and it’s a valid concern—one you should address if you want to engage your students.

When teaching a mathematical concept like averages, for example, show your students how they can use those calculations to find their average grades. Or when shopping during a sale, they can use percentages to find out how much they can save. Another great example is baking and knowing how to measure and convert food and liquids. If the recipe calls for ½ cup of flour but they need to double it, they will need to use math to find out that they need a whole cup. By using real-life math problems in the classrooms, students can connect what they are learning with scenarios where they would need to use it. 

When teaching science concepts, bring them to life with a science experiment. Don’t just talk about life cycles—get a caterpillar in your classroom, for example, and have students journal its day-to-day changes. If you are teaching a lesson on the weather, show students how it can impact their weekend plans. Or you can discuss weather events that have happened locally. Was there a drought or a major storm that impacted the community? There’s always a way to connect what students are learning to their day-to-day lives. 

Teaching writing is clearly relevant to the real world. Show students how writing is one of the primary ways people communicate with one another. From emails and texts to signs and labels, knowing how to read and write is essential to navigating the world. Being a good writer can help them express their thoughts more clearly in real-life scenarios, and there are many ways to apply this to classroom activities. Students can publish small pieces online, enter writing contests, or write cards and letters to loved ones. 

2. Give your students choices 

Students have many different gifts to offer. Whenever possible, give students a choice in the way they learn and demonstrate their knowledge. If you’re asking students to summarize a lesson, give them several options to choose from such as: 

• Create a song to highlight the important points of the lesson.
• Draw a picture to illustrate what they learned or found most interesting.
• Deliver a quick, one-minute presentation in front of the class.
• Write an essay response.

Choice boards are a teaching tool that gives students a menu of different activities they can choose from. Choice boards can be used as fun way to give your students a break, or as an assessment for them to demonstrate what they’ve learned. To learn how to make your own choice board, check out our article on using choice boards for students to differentiate instruction. 

If you offer a variety of options, students can choose an activity that gives them the best chance of success and, hopefully, sounds like fun. This gets the whole class involved, not just a few students. Plus, the students can see the content in a variety of ways, making them more likely to understand and remember it. 

3. Encourage movement in the classroom

Let’s face it, nobody enjoys sitting still for hours on end. If your students are up and about, they’re likely to be more alert and engaged. This is a proven brain-based learning strategy. Whenever you can add some movement to a lesson, make it happen—it’ll make things more exciting for everyone.

When teaching new vocabulary, in addition to writing it down or creating an accompanying illustration, you could have students demonstrate a movement that relates to the word, sort of like a reverse game of charades. Your entire vocabulary list then becomes an exercise in movement!

You can quiz the class, having students clap once for “agree” and two times for “disagree,” or you can have students respond in the form of a thumbs up or thumbs down. They can also respond by moving to different corners of the room. Consider also having students act out different concepts, which can be used creatively in any subject. For example in science, during a lesson on matter, your students could act out the traits of liquids, solids, and gases.

If your school allows it and weather permits, take your class outside for a lesson. They can sit in circles and work on something together in small groups. Students (or adults, for that matter) can get inspired by some fresh air and sunshine. You can even connect the lesson with being outdoors. You can have your students do a nature scavenger hunt, observe the weather, or do science projects such as tracing their shadows or testing how different surfaces absorb heat. 

Hannah French, a fourth-grade teacher, started taking her class outdoors once a week on what she called “Forest Fridays,” where they would do outdoor challenges, journaling, and other fun activities. To hear about Hannah’s experiences teaching outdoor, listen to our podcast episode with fourth-grade teacher Hannah French.  

You can also change the physical space of the learning environment. Move your desks around. Get rid of desks on certain days and only use chairs. Head to the gym if you can do a lesson on physics or math involving movement. Be on the lookout for ways to sneak some movement into your lesson plans. Students are likely to be more engaged when they’re not just sitting the entire time. You should be mindful to accommodate students with physical disabilities or mobility issues during these activities. For example, stretching exercises can get students moving without requiring strenuous movement. 

4. Integrate technology into learning

Technology has become a valuable tool in the classroom. In HMH’s 2024 Educator Confidence Report, 81% of educators with ten years of experience said that technology has impacted education “very/somewhat” positively. Technology is the perfect way to keep students engaged and excited about learning. 

One big advantage of using technology to differentiate instruction is the ability to more efficiently engage students through tailored learning experiences—students can work on what they each need the most. If you have 30 students, they can all be working at different levels of the same material and simultaneously getting feedback about how they’re doing. Technology can vary the type, topic, and difficulty of questions depending on the individual student.

Technology can also bring a lesson to life in ways that are more challenging, if even possible, in person. Virtual field trips offer unique learning opportunities for students. An art teacher can use virtual reality (VR) to take students on a trip through the Louvre Museum in Paris. A science teacher can use VR to show students the inside of a human body or the ecosystems of different oceans. Students can visit places such as the Grand Canyon, the White House, and the pyramids of Egypt without leaving the comfort of their classroom.

Digital tools can also give students the opportunity to observe and interact with processes that are otherwise hard to replicate, such as chemical reactions that occur in milliseconds or geological transformations that take millions of years. In virtual simulations and labs, students can manipulate variables, test hypotheses, and better visualize the outcomes. Students will not only better understand the concepts but have a lot of fun learning. 

5. Encourage collaboration

Two heads are better than one. When students are learning, it can be much more engaging for them to work with a classmate. Look for ways for students to work with each other in the classroom. Think-pair-share activities are a great method. Give students individual time to think, let them pair up and discuss with a partner, and then have each pair share ideas with the entire class.

You can assign partners or let students choose a learning buddy. You can also encourage students to change partners often. Set a timer, and let them work with a person for two minutes. Once the time is up, have students pick a new partner. Do this for an entire activity, and students may end up pairing with the whole class! All of those interactions will make the learning process a lot more fun.

6. Gamify learning

Gamification in education is a teaching strategy that applies game elements to lessons to keep students engaged and excited about what they are learning. 

For example, a review lesson could be turned into a game of trivia where students earn points for every correct question. Bingo could be used to teach students vocabulary, where teachers read out the definition and students have to know the term to put the marker down or vice versa. Incorporating game elements like avatars, story contexts, and leaderboards can help to motivate some students, even if the rest of the activity is more lesson plan than game.

Imagine students are learning about the periodic table and need to know about their symbols, atomic numbers, and placement of the element. There are lots of way to incorporate game elements into this lesson. For example, you could make the periodic table into a game board. Students could hide select elements from their opponent and take turns guessing the hidden element by naming one of its characteristics. When they find an element, have the students name a different fact about the element. The first student to find all the hidden elements wins. 

Prizes are another game element that can help to motivate students. Teachers can have classroom rewards or incentives like homework passes for winners. Some classrooms use a sticker chart to have an ongoing competition that can last weeks or months. Friendly competition can be a great motivator, but remember that intrinsic motivation is always more powerful than extrinsic motivation. To learn more about intrinsic motivation, check out our article on Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS). The best forms of gamification inspire students to want to learn more about the subject matter.  

How do you make learning fun in your classroom? 

Making learning fun and engaging can be difficult, but it’s rewarding when you pull it off. When lessons are interactive and apply to real life, students are more likely to follow along and retain what they learn. You’ll also end up enjoying class even more because it’s rewarding to see the positive impact that your material is having on your students. It’s a win-win for everyone!

How do you make learning fun for your students? Share your ideas with us via email at shaped@hmhco.com or reach out on Instagram or Facebook.

This article was adapted from a blog post initially developed by the education technology company Classcraft, which was acquired by HMH in 2023. The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of HMH.

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This article was adapted from a blog post initially developed by the education technology company Classcraft, which was acquired by HMH in 2023. The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of HMH.