ELA doesn’t have to feel dry or test-heavy — especially during back-to-school time when you’re trying to build buy-in and classroom culture. Students can practice real, grade-level reading and writing skills and have fun doing it. Here are four creative ways to make ELA fun and more engaging while still covering the standards that matter.
1. Turn Practice into a Challenge
When you turn routine practice into a friendly competition, students perk up fast. You’re still reviewing key ELA skills — grammar, sentence structure, parts of speech — but with a format that taps into their natural motivation to win or beat their best.
Try a whiteboard challenge where you project a sentence that needs revision, and students race (individually or in teams) to fix it first. Or play “Which sentence is better?” where students vote anonymously on the strongest response and explain why.
Another favorite? A grammar scavenger hunt. Hide task cards or prompts around the room, and have students find and solve them in teams. Link to grammar task cards: 2nd-3rd, 4th-5th, 6th-8th, and 9th-10th
These activities are easy to prep, build excitement, and create opportunities for discussion and peer learning — all while reinforcing foundational ELA concepts.
2. Use Tech with a Twist
Technology doesn’t have to mean silent, solo work. When used intentionally, it can bring students together and make skills practice feel fresh.
Instead of having students work through a digital assignment on their own, try turning it into a collaborative challenge. Assign a Google Form or interactive slide deck, then group students into small teams. Give each team member a role: one reads the question, one navigates the tech, one verifies the answer, and one explains the reasoning.
This approach not only builds teamwork — it forces students to talk through the skill, not just click an answer. And for teachers, it’s a low-prep way to introduce or reinforce content while practicing digital tools they’ll use on tests like CAASPP, STAAR, or FAST.
To increase the fun? Add a timer, team points, or music in the background. Suddenly, it’s not just “practice” — it’s an ELA challenge they’ll ask to play again.
3. Incorporate Movement into Review
We all know students (especially early in the school year) need opportunities to move — but movement doesn’t have to mean chaos. With a few simple tweaks, you can turn ELA review into an active, structured experience.
One easy idea: Gallery Walk Task Cards. Post task cards with reading questions, grammar challenges, or vocabulary prompts around the room. Pair students up and have them rotate, discuss, and solve each one together. It gets them talking, thinking, and moving — all without needing a huge lesson overhaul.
You can also do a “Roam and Respond” activity where students respond to different literary analysis questions posted on chart paper and build on each other’s answers as they go.
Movement helps keep energy up, but it also serves a purpose: increasing engagement, deepening discussion, and giving you insight into how students are thinking — even during the first few weeks.
4. Add a Little Mystery with Color-by-number Reveal Activities
Sometimes the best way to get students excited about ELA is to disguise it as something else. That’s the magic of mystery pictures — self-checking activities where students answer questions and gradually reveal a hidden pixel image.
Mystery pictures can cover just about any ELA skill: inferencing, author’s purpose, editing, revising, and more. As students answer each question correctly, a piece of the image is revealed. If an answer is wrong, the picture doesn’t progress — giving students immediate feedback and encouraging them to try again.
What makes these activities so effective is that students stay engaged from start to finish — often forgetting that they’re reviewing standards-based content. They’re also great for fast finishers, centers, homework, or sub plans.
Want to try one with your class? I’ve created a FREE ELA mystery picture you can use with your students. It’s fun, flexible, and ready to assign.
👉 Click here to grab your free mystery picture activity
If your students love it, you can explore my full bundle of ELA mystery pictures — designed to reinforce skills all year long.
With just a few tweaks, you can bring joy and energy into your ELA block — while still covering the skills that matter. Fun and rigor can go hand in hand, and your students deserve both.
Whether it’s a mystery picture, a gallery walk, or a collaborative tech challenge, these activities can transform how your students experience ELA. They’ll be more engaged, more confident, and more likely to take ownership of their learning.
As the year unfolds, you’ll be grateful for routines and strategies that don’t just meet standards — they make learning memorable. And your students will be too. They’re not just building reading and writing skills — they’re learning that ELA can be creative, dynamic, and worth looking forward to.
Looking for more engaging resources to make your ELA block easier to plan and more exciting to teach? Explore my full library of ready-to-use activities, warm-ups, task cards, and mystery pictures in the shop.
Here’s to making learning meaningful and memorable — from day one to testing season and every moment in between.
