Put yourself right in the middle of history with games and simulations that can be played in the classroom. These games typically make use of cards, dice and boards. Each game includes links to the files needed to play the game, as well as instructional videos.
In this game, students play as members of a family living in a 14th-century Italian town that will suffer an outbreak of the bubonic plague.
In this simple board game students try and grow their stone-age tribe while answering questions about human pre-history. This game can be used for both introducing and reviewing units on this time period.
In this simple board game students will develop their community from a stone-age tribe of hunter gatherers into an agricultural village. Through this activity, they will learn about how efficient food production allowed for the rise of specialization and technological development.
In this simple game a pair of students take on the role of Julius Caesar and Vercengetorex in the Battle of Alesia. Through this activity, students will learn about this fascinating battle, which involved the Romans building a double circle of walls, and the difficult decisions that had to be made in ancient warfare.
In this resource-management game, students take on the role of a Chinese emperor seeking to build a dynasty that will last. Through this simulation, students will learn about the balance between virtue and fear that Chinese emperors had to utilize to govern successfully, as well as the role of monumental architecture in rule.
In this resource-management game, students take on the role of members of Vikings launching a raid. Through this simulation, students will learn why Vikings might go on a raid and the risks and rewards of raiding.
In this game designed to introduce the second half of world history, students oversee the fates of the Davies family. Through this simulation, students will be see how difficult life was in the seventeenth century, providing a way to introduce the massive changes that the modern world will bring.
In this resource-management and trading game, students take on the role of merchants in the Islamic world around the tenth century. Through this simulation, students will learn about how merchants engaged in trade and made money, as well as the dangers they faced.
In this resource-management game, students take on the role of members of Magellan’s circumambulation of the globe. Through this simulation, students will experience some of the major events of the voyage and see the obstacles Magellan and his men would have faced.
In this simple board game students will play samurai living in Tokugawa Japan (1603–1868) and explore what it was like to live as warriors who had no more wars to fight.
In this cooperate game, groups of students play as members of a samurai clan during the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries when Japan was rent by civil war. Through this activity, they will manage resources and make decisions to see what their clan’s fate is. In so doing, they will learn about Japanese history and culture and general, and specifically the role played by “money, muscle, and myth” in the re-unification of the country.
In this simple board game students will learn about what life was like for aristocratic women in Heian Japan (794-1185).
In this simple board game students will play a modern version of an Ancient Indian board game.
In this game, students take on the role of friends of Marjane Satrapi and experience what it was like to live in Iran during the early years of the Islamic Revolution. Through this simulation, students will learn about multiple influences on Iran, the divisions within Iranian society, and how they could impact the lives of individuals. This game is based on Marjane Satrapi’s graphic novel Persepolis.
In this game, students play as a nineteenth-century Latin American revolutionary seeking independence for his country and the formation of a unified Latin American state. Through this simulation, students will learn about how life trajectories shaped independence movements and revolutions and the international nature of Latin American paths to independence.
In this game, students guide the Davies family, now living in London, as they try and survive the difficulties of the nineteenth century while educating their children. Through this simulation, students will learn about how the industrial revolution both created new challenges and brought advances that made people’s lives better. Though it is not necessary to play it as well, this game is a follow up to “Can you survive seventeenth-century England.”
In this activity, students play a Trivial Pursuit-inspired board game that helps with review.
In this game, students play as friends of members of the “White Rose” a German-based anti-Nazi resistance group. Through this simulation, students will learn how dangerous and difficult it was to resist the Nazi regime.
In this game, students play as soldiers from the French Empire during the Great War. Through this simulation, students will learn how battles worked during the conflict and the difficulties soldiers experienced.
In this game, students play as a Chinese family living in nineteenth-century Qing China. Through this simulation, students will learn about the challenging domestic and foreign situation of the time and how it impacted everyday people trying to survive during a time when population growth was outstripping food supplies.
In this competitive game, students play against each other as the opposing Tokugawa and Imperial Restoration forces during the Meiji Restoration. Through this game, students will learn about the major events leading up to the Meiji Restoration and the event itself.
In this simulation, students play as Japanese soldiers assaulting 203-Meter Hill during the Russo-Japanese War. Through this game, students will learn about the difficulties Japanese soldiers faced during the war and how their fate affected their loved ones.
In this simulation, students play as a Ukrainian family trying to survive the terrible famine of the early 1930s known as the Holodomor. Through this game, students will learn about how Soviet policy led to mass starvation in an area of the world known for its ability to produce large amounts of food and how this impacted individual families.
In this simulation, students play a Filipino family trying to survive the Japanese invasion of the Philippines during World War Two. Through this game, students will learn about how Filipinos resisted the invaders and worked together with Americans to liberate their country.