As a high school accounting teacher, you want to provide your students with an education that prepares them for work in financial services. But without fun and engaging activities, your students could end up bored by the content they need to understand accounting.
Thankfully, there are many accounting games you can use to engage and excite your business students.
In this post, you'll discover four of the best accounting games for students:
- Accounting Trivia Game from Llearning Llama
- Accounting Escape Room from Business Girl
- Accounting Monopoly
- Accounting Bell Ringers from Mrs. Evensvold
After reading, you'll have a more complete idea of the types of games and activities available so you can choose what's best for your high schoolers.
1. Accounting Trivia Game from Llearning Llama
Llearning Llama is a Pennsylvania-based educator offering resources on Teachers Pay Teachers (TPT), the internet marketplace where teachers can buy, sell, and share classroom resources.
The Accounting Trivia Game is an interactive presentation for Microsoft PowerPoint and Google Slides that reviews essential accounting terminology. The game is presented in the style of the famous television game show Jeopardy!
To use this review game, divide the class into teams of 2-6 students and have them answer questions behind different "money" amounts on the board. The questions are divided into six content categories:
- Balance Sheet
- Journalizing
- Potpourri
- General Ledger
- Vocab
- Worksheet
Whoever scores the most "money" at the end of the game wins!
How Much Does This Accounting Game Cost and Who Is It For?
The Accounting Trivia Game is available on Teachers Pay Teachers for $3. This type of game is easy enough to create, so you could put one together yourself. But some teachers could enjoy the ease of having a review activity that's premade and ready to go.
Jeopardy! style games have long been popular in classrooms because they allow students to be competitive while reviewing important class content. They can be handy before a unit test or a final exam.
The main drawback of this game is that it's primarily oriented toward a financial literacy class. If you are teaching more advanced accounting students, you may need to replace some questions with more suitable material for an upper-level course.
2. Accounting Escape Room from Business Girl
Imagine the drama of being trapped in a room where only your ability to complete accurate accounting can save you. This is the scenario facing students in the Accounting Escape Room, an activity available from Business Girl on Teachers Pay Teachers. Business Girl is a reputable TPT seller with activities in various high school business education subjects.
The Accounting Escape Room bundle includes the traditional, classroom-based escape room and a digital version you can use with remote learners.
The game's objective is to complete a series of puzzles to "unlock" the door to the escape room within a set amount of time. To do this, students must complete a series of exercises demonstrating their accounting skills.
Accounting activities students must undertake include:
- Using a cryptogram to identify the terms: assets, liabilities, and owner's equity
- Assembling accounting equations and checking to see if they balance
- Calculating net profit
- Calculating the total for an invoice
- Answering questions about financial statements and other accounting terminology
Whether you use the classroom or digital version of the game, students enter answers to the escape room exercises using Google Forms.
How Much Does This Accounting Game Cost and Who Is It For?
The 75-page Accounting Escape Room bundle is available on TPT for $5.50. This is a fair price considering the entertainment value you receive and the fact you get two versions of the activity.
Overall, this game is an excellent fit for students with basic accounting knowledge who need to review different accounting exercises before an exam. It's also a good fit for teachers who have remote learners who might otherwise feel left out of traditional classroom activities.
3. Accounting Monopoly
Monopoly is America's most popular board game. Players buy, sell, and rent properties to become the sole owner of every spot on the board.
Almost every move in Monopoly involves either receiving or spending money. Consequently, this provides a perfect teaching opportunity for high school accounting instructors.
To play Monopoly in your classroom, you'll need:
- Several Monopoly board games
- Financial ledgers for each student
- Plenty of scratch papers, pencils, and calculators if necessary
Instead of simply playing Monopoly without keeping track of the play money, you can have students create a bank ledger based on the assets they gain and lose throughout the game.
Every time a student passes go, lands on free parking, or pays to get out of jail, they should account for these transactions in a ledger. After the game, students can compare their registers to check for accuracy. You can even assign one student to be the banker to keep track of the bank's financial assets.
How Much Does This Accounting Game Cost and Who Is It For?
The cost of running a Monopoly game depends on how many board games you need. According to Hasbro, each game can accommodate 2-8 players. You may need several copies if playing the game in groups in your classroom. Many versions of the game are available, but a simple, classic edition may only cost $15 per copy.
However, time is the highest cost of running a Monopoly game in class. It will take a decent amount of time to set up each game, account for money before the game, and create ledgers for students.
Since Monopoly games can be notorious for running for many hours or even days on end, consider using Hasbro's rules for a quick game or setting a time limit to determine the winner.
Overall, entering transactions in a ledger can be one of the dullest aspects of an accounting course, but a good old-fashioned game of Monopoly could be just what your students need to develop this critical career skill. However, it’ll work best with students who are new to accounting. Those who’ve mastered basic ledgers may need something more challenging.
4. Accounting Bell Ringers from Mrs. Evensvold
Mrs. Evensvold is a high school business teacher from North Dakota offering classroom materials on Teachers Pay Teachers. Among the resources she provides are accounting bell ringer activities. "Bell ringers" are short exercises designed to help students focus at the beginning of each class period.
The Accounting Bell Ringer package includes enough of these little games and activities to last an entire 17-week semester.
The type of activity varies depending on the day of the school week:
- Math Monday - Questions include the accounting equation, salary, and calculating account balances.
- Statement Tuesday - Questions related to financial statements, including calculating net sales.
- Work Wednesday - Accounting-related careers.
- Concept Thursday - Questions related to Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP).
- Fraud Friday - Some popular and less well-known accounting fraud stories.
Each day of the week, students look at a different aspect of accounting work, from mathematical calculations to career-related opportunities.
How Much Does This Accounting Package Cost and Who Is It For?
You can purchase Mrs. Evensvold's Accounting Bell Ringers for $6.00. This is a tremendous value considering there are enough activities here to last you an entire semester.
These activities and accounting games for students are a great choice for most classrooms because they encourage students to explore many aspects of the profession and hone their skills over the course of the semester.
This resource will work best if you establish the bell ringer as a part of your daily classroom routine. Teachers who would rather pick and choose activities to use from time to time are better off choosing other games to use in their accounting lessons.
Keep Students Engaged in Your Accounting Classes
When teaching accounting, it's critical to keep your students engaged so they don't miss content essential for their success as financial professionals. To that end, any of the accounting games for students mentioned in this article could be a great start to gaining and keeping your students' attention in class.
But sadly, games alone aren't enough to ensure students stay focused throughout your entire class.
If you’re having trouble with student engagement, then download this free eBook to learn how to use active learning strategies and more to grab your students’ attention in accounting and other CTE classes. You'll be better equipped to gain and maintain your students' focus throughout the entire school year.
