Zoom Games and Activity Ideas

As we’re all staying at home, Zooms have become very popular. It’s a group video chat system that tons of schools are using to connect with students at home to teach and present ideas. It’s also just a great way to “hang out” – my kids have organized and participated in zooms with their friends. Families use zoom to keep touch.

We have also been using Zoom with our Church Youth Group. We used to meet weekly and have fun group activities, so Zoom has been our to-go to keep those activities going. And so I wanted to let you know of some things we’ve done for Fun Zoom Games and Activities Ideas, in case you’re looking to see what you can do with Zoom besides presenting a lesson.

You can go ahead and pin this image to save it for later so you can refer back to the ideas. This post may contain affiliate links.

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Zoom Equipment

I recommend having a light on your desk to help with brightness in your Zoom. We use this Desk Ring Light and it works well.

If you’re using Zoom on a phone, you’ll need to download the app. You can also use Zoom from a computer (which is what I prefer, so you can see everyone’s screen at once).

Zoom Backgrounds

Did you know that you can change your background on zoom?? Kind of like a green screen. Some of my kiddos are obsessed with changing backgrounds, ha! So we’ve provided Zoom Backgrounds for FREE using National Park Zoom backgrounds, HERE.

Zoom Group Activities and Games

The key to games and activities on Zoom is that they get everyone involved. When everyone has a turn or a way to participate, that makes it fun. If it’s just one or two people presenting something, oftentimes youth might just watch and not speak up, but if you plan activities that give each person a few minutes to have a turn, they’re excited to participate.

Free Zoom accounts have a time limit of 40 minutes, and it usually takes several minutes to get everyone on and make sure the microphone sounds and videos are working, so I would plan on a game of 20-30 minutes or less.

Let’s dive right into the things that we’ve tried as a youth group, plus ideas we’re planning. And if you have ideas to add to the list, I’d love to hear them! Enjoy all of these ideas! If you’re looking for ideas of Zoom Games for Students, I do have those gathered together in a whole separate list.

Zoom Talent Show

We actually did this for our first Zoom Activity. It was a great introduction for youth to see how zoom worked and give them each a chance to participate. We told them ahead of time to come prepared to share a talent, some did, and some made it up on the fly 😉

One youth lead the meeting and welcomed everyone and explained that we were going to do a talent show. They showed their talent and then called on the next youth to go. That next youth showed their talent and then called on someone else, on down the line until everyone had a turn. We all clapped after each talent, it was so fun to see them showing off what they’re good at or see them being silly (some talents were funny), and to see them all enjoying time together.

Some talents shared were:

–several showed pictures they had drawn or painted, just by holding them up to their screen on zoom

–some played musical instruments

–some talked about a story they had written

–some did the splits, some did impromptu pushups

–one even flipped their screen around and showed us a walk-through of a minecraft castle they had built.

If a youth didn’t have a talent, others would encourage them and say, “but you’re good at singing, sing us a song!” or “show us how you can stand on one foot”. And not all youth participated, some were called on and said they wanted to pass, and that was totally okay! They would just call on the next person.

Zoom Scavenger Hunt

This was way fun! One youth was in charge and they had a list of items that you can find in most homes. She would call out that item and the youth would race to find it and show it on their screen. Some youth ran with their phones, I would recommend having a rule that your device needs to stay put during the game 😉

You can keep individual points, first one with the item gets the point. We played in teams, boys versus girls. So if a girl was the first to show the item, the point went to the girls team.

When you are on a computer in “gallery view” you can see all of the screens in the zoom. You need someone watching in that view to judge to see who has the item first. They’re super fast at finding and showing things, so judging can get really tricky!

Some examples of items to put on the list: band-aid, tape, fork, hat, cup, blade of grass, mouse, pillow, hairbrush, paperclip, sharpie, etc.

Zoom Trivia Night

Again, you can divide into teams, boys versus girls, or whatever. One youth is in charge of the trivia questions. You can either play that the first person to raise their hand gets to answer, or you can take turns to where everyone gets a chance.

There are TONS of trivia questions and themes out there, whether Disney Trivia or History Trivia or even Trivia about your hometown.

Zoom Trivia Who’s Who Game

This is also along the lines of a trivia night, but based on the youth that are playing. Ask them all questions about themselves ahead of time, and then the Who’s Who questions are to guess who the information is about. For example, “this person has a favorite food of asparagus”, etc.

Zoom Guess Who Game

There’s a little work ahead of time on this one, but it’s worth it! Have all the kids (and adults!) send in a baby picture. Then one leader will compile them all into a folder on their computer. During the Zoom, they will share their screen and show the pictures one by one as everyone uses the Zoom Chat feature to guess who’s picture it is on the screen.

Zoom Pictionary Game

Yea for pictionary! You can divide into 2 teams, then you’ll have someone from one team draw and hold their drawing up to the zoom screen while those on their team guess.

You’ll need to have a youth running the game who pulls out of a list of items to draw and then texts that item to the next drawer so that the rest of the participants don’t see.

Zoom Hi-Lo Game

This is like the Hi-Lo Game on Price is Right. It requires a little prep beforehand, but it’ll be worth it! The idea is that one person will use the “share your screen” feature on Zoom. And on their screen, then will show a picture of an item on Amazon with a fake price that has been typed onto the picture. Then all the youth will hold up either a thumps up or a thumps down, to indicate if they think the real price is higher or lower than the price shown. Again, you can play in teams (they’ll need to be evenly divided), and whoever gets the question right gets points for their team – so if 5 boys and 2 girls get it right, that’s 5 points to the boys team and 2 points to the girls team.

The preparation on this game is looking up a variety of items from Amazon, saving an image of each item, and then using a photo editing app to put a fake price on the picture. Like this, Higher or Lower than $3.29?

ZOOM Cookie Contest

If your youth group is close in proximity, you can drop off cookie decorating kits to each of them, a few cookies and some icing (this is THE BEST iced cookie recipe!). Then they all decorate the cookies, either live on zoom or beforehand, and show them off to everyone.

An alternative might be to have each youth make their own cookies, but that requires more upfront work, so it might bring participation down a little.

Zoom Bingo Game

Bingo would be WAY fun! I have this Bingo Game – if someone has that, you can mail out bingo cards ahead of time. Or you can find online printable bingo cards and email them to everyone. Then have one person as the caller and you’re good to go!

Using Kahoot.It with Zoom

You can play trivia using Kahoot! Set up a Kahoot (which is a fun, interactive online trivia), then whoever made the Kahoot has it pulled up on their computer screen. Then they use the screen-sharing option in Zoom to show their screen. Everyone on Zoon watches their screen. Their screen will show the question and 4 possible answers. Then everyone is logged into the Kahoot and they use their own phones to enter their answers. It’s way fun!

Zoom Activity Comedy Show Night

This is similar to the online Talent Show activity, but instead of having each youth prepare a talent to showcase, have them come ready with a joke or funny story. I love this because each youth gets a few dedicated minutes to participate. Bring on the jokes!!

Online Charades via Zoom

Charade Game:
Host sends a word individually to one of the youth , they act out the word and the rest of the group tries to guess what it is
Reverse Charades:
Host sends a word to all but one youth , all youth act out at one time, while the one youth tries to guess , this one gets pretty interesting
See but No Hear:
Host sends a word to individual , youth mutes their microphone and rest of group tries to guess what they are saying without sound

Zoom Game See, But Not Hear!

Split into two even teams. One person will be sent a word or phrase through Zoom chat. They will mute themselves (really important) and say that word or phrase into their camera and everyone on their team will attempt to guess what they are saying. If they guess it correctly, they will be given 10 points. If after 1 minute the team hasn’t guessed it correctly, the other team will get one guess (after collectively deciding on their guess) to steal the points. If they guess it correctly, they will receive the 10 points.

Our goal is to let every person try one word or phrase. After each person has had a chance, the score will be tallied and a winning team declared! 😉

Progress Story Activity with Zoom

Reader idea: I also did a “Progressive story”. I started with “Once upon a time there was a…” and then each child took a turn added something to the story. I reminded them that it was a story using our imagination and it could be silly.

Show and Tell using Zoom

We had a Show and Tell using Zoom – each youth showed off something and told a little bit about it! Ideas ranged from pets to collections to projects they’d been working on to souvenirs and more.

More Group Activity Ideas

What other Zoom Games and Activity Ideas do you have?? Please let me know and I’ll update the post!

If you’re just wanting to stay in and play games with your family, be sure to check out this list of Fun Must-Have Family Games.

Or grab a spinner and customize it for loads of fun!!