App

Charades! Kids

Curated and Reviewed by Lesson Planet
This Charades! Kids app also includes:

Review content, fill a few minutes of time, hold a competition between several teams of students, and more. It all starts with asking pupils to hold tablets or smartphones up to their foreheads! From there, your class will head straight toward entertainment and practice.

K - 12th English Language Arts 42 Views 21 Downloads
App Overview

Charades! Kids is simple and entertaining. Use the decks on the app or create your own. Kids will pick up how to play almost immediately, and will interact with one another as they review content or just play.

How to Get Started:

  1. Choose between Quick Play (single person with the app) and Versus (teams of two, three, or four with three, five, or seven rounds)
  2. Select a category
  3. Put the tablet or phone on your forehead
  4. Try to guess the word using clues given to you by your team or class (acting, singing, description, etc.)
  5. Tilt the device down to face the ground if you guessed correctly; you can also tap the left side of the screen
  6. Tilt the device up toward the ceiling to skip the word; you can also tap the right side of the screen
  7. When the time runs out, view your results

Includes:

  • 28 pre-made, kid-friendly decks
  • Descriptions for each deck
  • Prompts in certain decks for singing, acting, and drawing 

Creating Your Own Deck:

  1. Select Custom
  2. Tap Add New Deck
  3. Choose Mine to create a deck on your device
  4. Type in a deck name
  5. Tap Add
  6. Select your new deck
  7. Add cards
  8. When you want to play this deck, tap Custom and choose your deck

Settings:

  • Choose from three round lengths: 60 seconds, 90 seconds, or 120 seconds
  • Add bonus time (adds to overall time when you get one correct)
  • Toggle sound effects on and off

Other Features:

  • Tweet, e-mail, and delete custom decks
  • Tap the hearts to add categories to your favorites
  • Read through a quick tutorial
  • See new categories that the app adds periodically
  • Gather coins as you play to unlock new categories
  • Remove adds and purchase coins if desired
Join for full overview
Curator Rating
  • Adherence to task

    Since the individual with the device is guessing, the decks and categories need to be relatively simple. There is only one game to play.

  • Worth the money

    The app is free and worth downloading. Kids will have fun playing and reviewing.

  • Fun factor

    Charades! Kids is very fun! The app provides an interactive and engaging game.

  • Scaffolding of learning

    A tutorial is provided to help users become familiar with how to play the game.

  • User safety

    The app has many advertisements. Paying the $0.99 to remove the ads is definitely recommended.

  • Control and feedback

    While users can see which words they missed at the end of a round, there is no permanent record or tally kept. There are no separate user accounts. However, you can create your own decks for custom review.

  • How techie do I need to be?
    Novice
Instructional Ideas
  • Spend those last two minutes of class playing this game for fun or to review class content
  • Set up teams and have them compete 
  • Create decks using class vocabulary and more, and practice as a whole class or in small groups
Classroom Considerations

The decks that are already loaded onto the app are designed for younger kids. However, you can create your own custom decks for older grades. You might stick with the kids version for school to ensure that all content is appropriate, but you can check out Charades! (not for kids), which is made by the same developer.

Pros
  • Interactive and fun game to play with kids of many ages
  • You can use the pre-made decks for a quick time filler or create your own custom deck to review specific concepts, facts, and terms
Cons
  • Advertisements are very distracting, so you will want to purchase the $0.99 ad removal
  • The app tends to freeze when you make a new deck; however, if you close and restart the app, your deck will be saved and usable