You are planning a lesson on a specific niche topic, perhaps the life cycle of a bean plant or the classification of local pond life, and you cannot find a high-quality interactive game that fits. You spend forty minutes scrolling through resource sites only to find games that are either too simple, behind a heavy paywall, or locked into proprietary whiteboard software that doesn’t quite work on your classroom screen.

The frustration of “making do” with generic resources is a major contributor to teacher burnout. We want our lessons to be engaging and interactive, but the time cost of creating these resources from scratch usually outweighs the benefit. However, the landscape is shifting. We no longer have to rely solely on what big publishers provide. We can now create “homebrew” solutions that are perfectly tailored to our specific learning objectives.

Why This Works So Well for Classrooms

Interactive games like these fit naturally into lessons. Use them as a plenary task to consolidate learning whilst keeping energy high. Use them as a starter activity to activate prior knowledge. Send them home as revision activities; because they’re web-based, students can access them on any device. They’re particularly useful for homework because they’re more engaging than a worksheet and easier to mark in some ways, since the game itself provides immediate feedback.

Because these games are generated fresh, they feel new to children. They’re not recycled resources you’ve used for five years. And because you can tweak them, they’re genuinely tailored to what your class has actually learned.

Watch this video to learn more:

How to make a game

When entering the prompts in Google Gemini – make sure that you click on Tools and choose Canvas. And if you can, turn on Thinking instead of Fast.

In Canva Code just paste the prompt in. (From the front page of Canva, click on Canva AI and Code to access Canva Code).

Example Game Prompts to Copy

As shown in the video, here are some example prompts that allow you to create interactive science games in AI tools such as Google Gemini and Canva Code.

Simply copy and paste the prompts below into Gemini or Canva. Once entered, you can continue to refine your games by asking for edits until you get the game looking how you want.

1. Life Cycle Sequencer

Create an interactive educational game where students drag and drop stages of life cycles into the correct sequential order. Suitable for ages 7 to 11. 
LIFE CYCLE STAGES:
Butterfly: Egg → Caterpillar → Chrysalis → Butterfly
Frog: Egg/Spawn → Tadpole → Tadpole with legs → Froglet → Adult frog
Bean Plant: Seed → Germination/Sprout → Seedling → Flowering plant → Seed pod

2. States of Matter Sorter

Create an interactive science game where students sort everyday objects into solid, liquid, or gas categories. Suitable for ages 7 to 11.
OBJECTS TO SORT:
Solids: rock, book, ice cube, wooden block, metal spoon, apple
Liquids: water, milk, orange juice, oil, honey
Gases: air in balloon, steam, oxygen, helium, carbon dioxide

3. Food Chain Builder

Create an interactive ecology game where students arrange organisms into a correct food chain from producer to top predator, with visual energy transfer. Suitable for 8 to 11 year olds. 
EXAMPLE FOOD CHAINS:
Pond: Water plants → Tadpole → Small fish → Pike → Heron
Woodland: Oak tree → Caterpillar → Blue tit → Sparrowhawk
Ocean: Phytoplankton → Zooplankton → Small fish → Larger fish → Shark

4. Magnet Tester

Create an interactive science game where students predict which objects are magnetic, then test their predictions with a virtual magnet. Suitable for ages 7 to 11.
OBJECTS TO INCLUDE:
Magnetic: paper clip, steel scissors, iron nail, steel spoon, steel can, key
Non-magnetic: plastic ruler, wooden pencil, glass marble, rubber eraser, aluminum foil, copper coin

5. Classification Game

Create an interactive game for primary students about animal classification. Include categories for Mammals, fish, amphibians, Reptiles, and Birds. Students should be able to click a button to see a random vertebrate animal and then click the correct category to sort it. Suitable for ages 7 to 11.

6. Memory Game

Create a classic memory matching card game with animal pairs for primary school students. Suitable for ages 5 to 11. 
Animals to include: cat, dog, elephant, shark, goldfish, frog, penguin, butterfly, crocodile, snake, axolotl, bee.

You can also ask the AI to refine your game as you go along. Keep prompting it until you get the game how you want it.

Top Tip: You can ask the Ai to improve your prompt for you. Paste in your basic prompt with a request to “improve this”

Three Classroom Steps You Can Take Today

1. Start with one prompt. Don’t try to build your entire unit plan in one afternoon. Pick one concept from your upcoming lessons, say life cycles or states of matter, and paste one of the provided prompts into Gemini or Canva. Spend five minutes testing it. See how it feels in practice.
2. Plan where it fits in your lesson. Decide whether this game works best as a starter, during guided practice, or as a plenary. If it’s a plenary, how much time do you have? A two-minute game is very different from a ten-minute one. Ask the AI to adjust difficulty or add a time limit if needed.
3. Share the link or QR code with your class and gather feedback. Once you’ve used it with your class, ask children what worked, what didn’t, what they’d change. This does two things: it gives you genuine feedback to refine your game design, and it teaches children to think critically about digital tools and user experience. Next time you make a game, you’ll make a better one. What games would they suggest?

Personally, I think the combination of AI-generated games and something like PowerPoint or FigJam is enough for most teachers to move away from expensive proprietary software. It’s about working smarter, not harder. By using these tools, we can reclaim our planning time while still providing the high-quality, interactive science lessons our students deserve.