House Challenge Ideas That Can Supercharge Your School Culture

A little friendly competition can go a long way to improving your school culture!
By 
Allison Oharriz
 | 
January 11, 2023

House challenges can range from a 10-minute activity once a week to a multi-day or week event. It all depends on what your students and staff find valuable and entertaining. Everyone loves a little friendly competition, and the ideas below give opportunities for students of all skill sets to participate.

Keep it Short and Sweet

These competitions are short and sweet. They are perfect for quick brain breaks at the beginning of your house meetings or during lunches. The games shouldn’t take long, and staff can easily assign points to winning teams.

The teachers in us love icebreakers (for our students 😜) and we have some games that can help your students quickly get to know each other on a fundamental level while competing with the other houses.

Games Ideal for the Beginning of the Year:

Pro tip: Set up a category in your LiveSchool Rubric titled “House Challenges” and create positive buttons for each place with a certain amount of points. That way, you can create consistency between these events and every house gets some points!

House Challenge Ideas

Taking Your Challenge to the Next Level

After a few weeks of getting to know each other, it's time to have some fun. With these competitions, you will want to pick an equal number of contestants from each house to participate. Try giving different students a chance to play other games. You can even say, “we need the 3 fastest players from each house.” What they don’t realize is you’ll be looking to see who can make a paper airplane the fastest and not who the fastest runner is.

House Challenge Example

Time to Get Creative

Some schools like to mix the short games with longer challenges throughout the year. Think of typical school events like homecoming week or a food drive and then connect them to your Houses.

House Challenge Ideas

Celebrate Your Students Unique Skills

One of the most important things a school can do to promote a positive school culture is to acknowledge and celebrate its students' diverse skill sets and capabilities. Houses have a chance to gain house points by showing off their members’ skills, from athletic abilities to superior intellect.

House Challenge Ideas

Remember the Purpose

The ultimate purpose of having houses is to create school culture that revolves around positive student behavior. Positive student behavior can be your biggest on-going competition through each round of House Cups.

A cool way to keep the momentum of gaining positive points alive is by having house points on screens or TVs in heavy student traffic areas around the school. Students in the hallways or in their classrooms can watch as their house points go up and see who is contributing to those points on the screen. We have seen that this is a huge motivator for students since they enjoy being acknowledged publicly and contributing to accomplishments.

House Challenge Ideas

Whether your school is looking to increase engagement in the current House System or you are starting from scratch, these are just a few house event ideas schools can do to build culture and house pride. So pick a few of your favorites, try them out, and tell us how they went!

Want to supercharge your school culture? Check out our guide to developing House spirit and our database of House Name Ideas.

For more resources on Houses check out the magic happening at our partner school: Antioch Middle School.

Subscribe via Email

Receive the best school culture resources monthly to inspire your planning.

House Challenge Ideas That Can Supercharge Your School Culture

A little friendly competition can go a long way to improving your school culture!
By 
Allison Oharriz
 | 
January 11, 2023
Positive student behavior doesn’t have to be the only way a school can give out rewards. An exciting way to continue the momentum of spirit, community, and culture in your school’s houses is to give opportunities for students to earn house points through house challenges.

House challenges can range from a 10-minute activity once a week to a multi-day or week event. It all depends on what your students and staff find valuable and entertaining. Everyone loves a little friendly competition, and the ideas below give opportunities for students of all skill sets to participate.

Keep it Short and Sweet

These competitions are short and sweet. They are perfect for quick brain breaks at the beginning of your house meetings or during lunches. The games shouldn’t take long, and staff can easily assign points to winning teams.

The teachers in us love icebreakers (for our students 😜) and we have some games that can help your students quickly get to know each other on a fundamental level while competing with the other houses.

Games Ideal for the Beginning of the Year:

  • Find your match - The host calls out for players within the same house to find someone who has something alike, i.e. favorite subject, has the same pet/no pet, is born in the same month, has the same amount of siblings, etc. The house that gets matched up the fastest in each round gets points.
  • Birthday Line Up - Have students line up by their birth date. But the catch is they cannot talk! The House that gets it done the fastest gets points.
  • Human Knot - A classic icebreaker game. Have the students within houses split up into groups of 8-10. Students in each group would stand in a circle, extend their right hand to the center, and grab someone else's right hand that wasn’t next to them. Then they extend their left hand to hold someone else's left hand that isn't next to them. The group would need to communicate and try to untangle themselves. Their hands must stay latched the entire time. The house to have all of their groups untangled first receives the most points.

Pro tip: Set up a category in your LiveSchool Rubric titled “House Challenges” and create positive buttons for each place with a certain amount of points. That way, you can create consistency between these events and every house gets some points!

House Challenge Ideas

Taking Your Challenge to the Next Level

After a few weeks of getting to know each other, it's time to have some fun. With these competitions, you will want to pick an equal number of contestants from each house to participate. Try giving different students a chance to play other games. You can even say, “we need the 3 fastest players from each house.” What they don’t realize is you’ll be looking to see who can make a paper airplane the fastest and not who the fastest runner is.

  • Party games - Yup! Think way back when to your 10th birthday party. I am talking musical chairs, bobbing for apples, pin the tail on the donkey, freeze dance, egg and spoon race, and sack race. These are oldies but goodies when it comes to quick games that are still fun to watch and participate in.
  • Minute to Win it - Just like the TV show, students and staff can participate in 60-second challenges using everyday items found in the house. Plan out the challenges ahead of time to ensure you have the necessary items for participants. Here’s a link that provides 50 Minute to Win It games for kids.
House Challenge Example

Time to Get Creative

Some schools like to mix the short games with longer challenges throughout the year. Think of typical school events like homecoming week or a food drive and then connect them to your Houses.

  • House Challenge Week - Create a theme for each day of the week and award points to the Houses that have the most participation for each theme. Some examples we’ve seen in the LiveSchool Community include House Pride day where you wear your house colors, wacky sock day, and college day.
  • Fundraiser - if your school typically does a fundraiser each year, you can consider incorporating House Points to help with motivating your students
  • Food drive - Another typical school event that won’t need much additional planning! Just market it as a House challenge and inform your students of the possible points they could receive.
  • Family Fun - A great way to incorporate the entire family is by creating challenges that families can do at home. Based on the challenge, you can choose to have them submit their entries physically or through a video or picture. Then, award points to the students who have submissions or to the whole House with the most submissions. Some challenge ideas include:
  • Suck It Up – For this challenge, you will need goldfish, straws, and two plates. Without using your hands, players will need to move goldfish from one plate to the other using only the suction from the straw.
  • Rainbow Art - Create your own version of a rainbow out of any materials.
  • Self Tower - Build a tower taller than yourself. You can either have each family member build their own or all work together on one tower that’s taller than one member of the family.
House Challenge Ideas

Celebrate Your Students Unique Skills

One of the most important things a school can do to promote a positive school culture is to acknowledge and celebrate its students' diverse skill sets and capabilities. Houses have a chance to gain house points by showing off their members’ skills, from athletic abilities to superior intellect.

  • Intramural sports - Intramural sports are sports competitions that can be held between houses. The sports change within semesters and depend on the campus facilities. Students can play sports like volleyball, flag football, soccer, and basketball. This allows students who wouldn’t usually make cuts for the school's team to play on their house team. Games won can count as points towards their house.
  • Battle of the Books - With Battle of the Books, a group of students from each house would be assigned books to read and attend house competitions. At the event, houses would test their knowledge of the books they had read.
  • Mathletes - Cue all the Mean Girls fans, “The limit does not exist!” Mathletes are math athletes who compete in math competitions. The school can hold math competitions among the house’s mathletes. Students who win the math competition gain points for their house.
  • E-sports - Esports has become extremely popular over the last few years. People can now watch teams compete in online video games just like they watch teams play football. Houses can have Esports teams compete in a school tournament where they duel the other houses in common games like League of Legends and Minecraft.
House Challenge Ideas

Remember the Purpose

The ultimate purpose of having houses is to create school culture that revolves around positive student behavior. Positive student behavior can be your biggest on-going competition through each round of House Cups.

A cool way to keep the momentum of gaining positive points alive is by having house points on screens or TVs in heavy student traffic areas around the school. Students in the hallways or in their classrooms can watch as their house points go up and see who is contributing to those points on the screen. We have seen that this is a huge motivator for students since they enjoy being acknowledged publicly and contributing to accomplishments.

House Challenge Ideas

Whether your school is looking to increase engagement in the current House System or you are starting from scratch, these are just a few house event ideas schools can do to build culture and house pride. So pick a few of your favorites, try them out, and tell us how they went!

Want to supercharge your school culture? Check out our guide to developing House spirit and our database of House Name Ideas.

For more resources on Houses check out the magic happening at our partner school: Antioch Middle School.

Subscribe via Email

Receive the best school culture resources monthly to inspire your planning.

House challenges can range from a 10-minute activity once a week to a multi-day or week event. It all depends on what your students and staff find valuable and entertaining. Everyone loves a little friendly competition, and the ideas below give opportunities for students of all skill sets to participate.

Keep it Short and Sweet

These competitions are short and sweet. They are perfect for quick brain breaks at the beginning of your house meetings or during lunches. The games shouldn’t take long, and staff can easily assign points to winning teams.

The teachers in us love icebreakers (for our students 😜) and we have some games that can help your students quickly get to know each other on a fundamental level while competing with the other houses.

Games Ideal for the Beginning of the Year:

  • Find your match - The host calls out for players within the same house to find someone who has something alike, i.e. favorite subject, has the same pet/no pet, is born in the same month, has the same amount of siblings, etc. The house that gets matched up the fastest in each round gets points.
  • Birthday Line Up - Have students line up by their birth date. But the catch is they cannot talk! The House that gets it done the fastest gets points.
  • Human Knot - A classic icebreaker game. Have the students within houses split up into groups of 8-10. Students in each group would stand in a circle, extend their right hand to the center, and grab someone else's right hand that wasn’t next to them. Then they extend their left hand to hold someone else's left hand that isn't next to them. The group would need to communicate and try to untangle themselves. Their hands must stay latched the entire time. The house to have all of their groups untangled first receives the most points.

Pro tip: Set up a category in your LiveSchool Rubric titled “House Challenges” and create positive buttons for each place with a certain amount of points. That way, you can create consistency between these events and every house gets some points!

House Challenge Ideas

Taking Your Challenge to the Next Level

After a few weeks of getting to know each other, it's time to have some fun. With these competitions, you will want to pick an equal number of contestants from each house to participate. Try giving different students a chance to play other games. You can even say, “we need the 3 fastest players from each house.” What they don’t realize is you’ll be looking to see who can make a paper airplane the fastest and not who the fastest runner is.

  • Party games - Yup! Think way back when to your 10th birthday party. I am talking musical chairs, bobbing for apples, pin the tail on the donkey, freeze dance, egg and spoon race, and sack race. These are oldies but goodies when it comes to quick games that are still fun to watch and participate in.
  • Minute to Win it - Just like the TV show, students and staff can participate in 60-second challenges using everyday items found in the house. Plan out the challenges ahead of time to ensure you have the necessary items for participants. Here’s a link that provides 50 Minute to Win It games for kids.
House Challenge Example

Time to Get Creative

Some schools like to mix the short games with longer challenges throughout the year. Think of typical school events like homecoming week or a food drive and then connect them to your Houses.

  • House Challenge Week - Create a theme for each day of the week and award points to the Houses that have the most participation for each theme. Some examples we’ve seen in the LiveSchool Community include House Pride day where you wear your house colors, wacky sock day, and college day.
  • Fundraiser - if your school typically does a fundraiser each year, you can consider incorporating House Points to help with motivating your students
  • Food drive - Another typical school event that won’t need much additional planning! Just market it as a House challenge and inform your students of the possible points they could receive.
  • Family Fun - A great way to incorporate the entire family is by creating challenges that families can do at home. Based on the challenge, you can choose to have them submit their entries physically or through a video or picture. Then, award points to the students who have submissions or to the whole House with the most submissions. Some challenge ideas include:
  • Suck It Up – For this challenge, you will need goldfish, straws, and two plates. Without using your hands, players will need to move goldfish from one plate to the other using only the suction from the straw.
  • Rainbow Art - Create your own version of a rainbow out of any materials.
  • Self Tower - Build a tower taller than yourself. You can either have each family member build their own or all work together on one tower that’s taller than one member of the family.
House Challenge Ideas

Celebrate Your Students Unique Skills

One of the most important things a school can do to promote a positive school culture is to acknowledge and celebrate its students' diverse skill sets and capabilities. Houses have a chance to gain house points by showing off their members’ skills, from athletic abilities to superior intellect.

  • Intramural sports - Intramural sports are sports competitions that can be held between houses. The sports change within semesters and depend on the campus facilities. Students can play sports like volleyball, flag football, soccer, and basketball. This allows students who wouldn’t usually make cuts for the school's team to play on their house team. Games won can count as points towards their house.
  • Battle of the Books - With Battle of the Books, a group of students from each house would be assigned books to read and attend house competitions. At the event, houses would test their knowledge of the books they had read.
  • Mathletes - Cue all the Mean Girls fans, “The limit does not exist!” Mathletes are math athletes who compete in math competitions. The school can hold math competitions among the house’s mathletes. Students who win the math competition gain points for their house.
  • E-sports - Esports has become extremely popular over the last few years. People can now watch teams compete in online video games just like they watch teams play football. Houses can have Esports teams compete in a school tournament where they duel the other houses in common games like League of Legends and Minecraft.
House Challenge Ideas

Remember the Purpose

The ultimate purpose of having houses is to create school culture that revolves around positive student behavior. Positive student behavior can be your biggest on-going competition through each round of House Cups.

A cool way to keep the momentum of gaining positive points alive is by having house points on screens or TVs in heavy student traffic areas around the school. Students in the hallways or in their classrooms can watch as their house points go up and see who is contributing to those points on the screen. We have seen that this is a huge motivator for students since they enjoy being acknowledged publicly and contributing to accomplishments.

House Challenge Ideas

Whether your school is looking to increase engagement in the current House System or you are starting from scratch, these are just a few house event ideas schools can do to build culture and house pride. So pick a few of your favorites, try them out, and tell us how they went!

Want to supercharge your school culture? Check out our guide to developing House spirit and our database of House Name Ideas.

For more resources on Houses check out the magic happening at our partner school: Antioch Middle School.

quote icon
Back
Let’s take this to your inbox
We’ll send you our monthly newsletter which is fully stocked with free resources like articles, videos, podcasts, reward ideas, and anything else we can think of to help you make your school awesome.

House challenges can range from a 10-minute activity once a week to a multi-day or week event. It all depends on what your students and staff find valuable and entertaining. Everyone loves a little friendly competition, and the ideas below give opportunities for students of all skill sets to participate.

Keep it Short and Sweet

These competitions are short and sweet. They are perfect for quick brain breaks at the beginning of your house meetings or during lunches. The games shouldn’t take long, and staff can easily assign points to winning teams.

The teachers in us love icebreakers (for our students 😜) and we have some games that can help your students quickly get to know each other on a fundamental level while competing with the other houses.

Games Ideal for the Beginning of the Year:

  • Find your match - The host calls out for players within the same house to find someone who has something alike, i.e. favorite subject, has the same pet/no pet, is born in the same month, has the same amount of siblings, etc. The house that gets matched up the fastest in each round gets points.
  • Birthday Line Up - Have students line up by their birth date. But the catch is they cannot talk! The House that gets it done the fastest gets points.
  • Human Knot - A classic icebreaker game. Have the students within houses split up into groups of 8-10. Students in each group would stand in a circle, extend their right hand to the center, and grab someone else's right hand that wasn’t next to them. Then they extend their left hand to hold someone else's left hand that isn't next to them. The group would need to communicate and try to untangle themselves. Their hands must stay latched the entire time. The house to have all of their groups untangled first receives the most points.

Pro tip: Set up a category in your LiveSchool Rubric titled “House Challenges” and create positive buttons for each place with a certain amount of points. That way, you can create consistency between these events and every house gets some points!

House Challenge Ideas

Taking Your Challenge to the Next Level

After a few weeks of getting to know each other, it's time to have some fun. With these competitions, you will want to pick an equal number of contestants from each house to participate. Try giving different students a chance to play other games. You can even say, “we need the 3 fastest players from each house.” What they don’t realize is you’ll be looking to see who can make a paper airplane the fastest and not who the fastest runner is.

  • Party games - Yup! Think way back when to your 10th birthday party. I am talking musical chairs, bobbing for apples, pin the tail on the donkey, freeze dance, egg and spoon race, and sack race. These are oldies but goodies when it comes to quick games that are still fun to watch and participate in.
  • Minute to Win it - Just like the TV show, students and staff can participate in 60-second challenges using everyday items found in the house. Plan out the challenges ahead of time to ensure you have the necessary items for participants. Here’s a link that provides 50 Minute to Win It games for kids.
House Challenge Example

Time to Get Creative

Some schools like to mix the short games with longer challenges throughout the year. Think of typical school events like homecoming week or a food drive and then connect them to your Houses.

  • House Challenge Week - Create a theme for each day of the week and award points to the Houses that have the most participation for each theme. Some examples we’ve seen in the LiveSchool Community include House Pride day where you wear your house colors, wacky sock day, and college day.
  • Fundraiser - if your school typically does a fundraiser each year, you can consider incorporating House Points to help with motivating your students
  • Food drive - Another typical school event that won’t need much additional planning! Just market it as a House challenge and inform your students of the possible points they could receive.
  • Family Fun - A great way to incorporate the entire family is by creating challenges that families can do at home. Based on the challenge, you can choose to have them submit their entries physically or through a video or picture. Then, award points to the students who have submissions or to the whole House with the most submissions. Some challenge ideas include:
  • Suck It Up – For this challenge, you will need goldfish, straws, and two plates. Without using your hands, players will need to move goldfish from one plate to the other using only the suction from the straw.
  • Rainbow Art - Create your own version of a rainbow out of any materials.
  • Self Tower - Build a tower taller than yourself. You can either have each family member build their own or all work together on one tower that’s taller than one member of the family.
House Challenge Ideas

Celebrate Your Students Unique Skills

One of the most important things a school can do to promote a positive school culture is to acknowledge and celebrate its students' diverse skill sets and capabilities. Houses have a chance to gain house points by showing off their members’ skills, from athletic abilities to superior intellect.

  • Intramural sports - Intramural sports are sports competitions that can be held between houses. The sports change within semesters and depend on the campus facilities. Students can play sports like volleyball, flag football, soccer, and basketball. This allows students who wouldn’t usually make cuts for the school's team to play on their house team. Games won can count as points towards their house.
  • Battle of the Books - With Battle of the Books, a group of students from each house would be assigned books to read and attend house competitions. At the event, houses would test their knowledge of the books they had read.
  • Mathletes - Cue all the Mean Girls fans, “The limit does not exist!” Mathletes are math athletes who compete in math competitions. The school can hold math competitions among the house’s mathletes. Students who win the math competition gain points for their house.
  • E-sports - Esports has become extremely popular over the last few years. People can now watch teams compete in online video games just like they watch teams play football. Houses can have Esports teams compete in a school tournament where they duel the other houses in common games like League of Legends and Minecraft.
House Challenge Ideas

Remember the Purpose

The ultimate purpose of having houses is to create school culture that revolves around positive student behavior. Positive student behavior can be your biggest on-going competition through each round of House Cups.

A cool way to keep the momentum of gaining positive points alive is by having house points on screens or TVs in heavy student traffic areas around the school. Students in the hallways or in their classrooms can watch as their house points go up and see who is contributing to those points on the screen. We have seen that this is a huge motivator for students since they enjoy being acknowledged publicly and contributing to accomplishments.

House Challenge Ideas

Whether your school is looking to increase engagement in the current House System or you are starting from scratch, these are just a few house event ideas schools can do to build culture and house pride. So pick a few of your favorites, try them out, and tell us how they went!

Want to supercharge your school culture? Check out our guide to developing House spirit and our database of House Name Ideas.

For more resources on Houses check out the magic happening at our partner school: Antioch Middle School.

House Challenge Ideas That Can Supercharge Your School Culture

A little friendly competition can go a long way to improving your school culture!
By 
Allison Oharriz
 | 
January 11, 2023

House challenges can range from a 10-minute activity once a week to a multi-day or week event. It all depends on what your students and staff find valuable and entertaining. Everyone loves a little friendly competition, and the ideas below give opportunities for students of all skill sets to participate.

Keep it Short and Sweet

These competitions are short and sweet. They are perfect for quick brain breaks at the beginning of your house meetings or during lunches. The games shouldn’t take long, and staff can easily assign points to winning teams.

The teachers in us love icebreakers (for our students 😜) and we have some games that can help your students quickly get to know each other on a fundamental level while competing with the other houses.

Games Ideal for the Beginning of the Year:

  • Find your match - The host calls out for players within the same house to find someone who has something alike, i.e. favorite subject, has the same pet/no pet, is born in the same month, has the same amount of siblings, etc. The house that gets matched up the fastest in each round gets points.
  • Birthday Line Up - Have students line up by their birth date. But the catch is they cannot talk! The House that gets it done the fastest gets points.
  • Human Knot - A classic icebreaker game. Have the students within houses split up into groups of 8-10. Students in each group would stand in a circle, extend their right hand to the center, and grab someone else's right hand that wasn’t next to them. Then they extend their left hand to hold someone else's left hand that isn't next to them. The group would need to communicate and try to untangle themselves. Their hands must stay latched the entire time. The house to have all of their groups untangled first receives the most points.

Pro tip: Set up a category in your LiveSchool Rubric titled “House Challenges” and create positive buttons for each place with a certain amount of points. That way, you can create consistency between these events and every house gets some points!

House Challenge Ideas

Taking Your Challenge to the Next Level

After a few weeks of getting to know each other, it's time to have some fun. With these competitions, you will want to pick an equal number of contestants from each house to participate. Try giving different students a chance to play other games. You can even say, “we need the 3 fastest players from each house.” What they don’t realize is you’ll be looking to see who can make a paper airplane the fastest and not who the fastest runner is.

  • Party games - Yup! Think way back when to your 10th birthday party. I am talking musical chairs, bobbing for apples, pin the tail on the donkey, freeze dance, egg and spoon race, and sack race. These are oldies but goodies when it comes to quick games that are still fun to watch and participate in.
  • Minute to Win it - Just like the TV show, students and staff can participate in 60-second challenges using everyday items found in the house. Plan out the challenges ahead of time to ensure you have the necessary items for participants. Here’s a link that provides 50 Minute to Win It games for kids.
House Challenge Example

Time to Get Creative

Some schools like to mix the short games with longer challenges throughout the year. Think of typical school events like homecoming week or a food drive and then connect them to your Houses.

  • House Challenge Week - Create a theme for each day of the week and award points to the Houses that have the most participation for each theme. Some examples we’ve seen in the LiveSchool Community include House Pride day where you wear your house colors, wacky sock day, and college day.
  • Fundraiser - if your school typically does a fundraiser each year, you can consider incorporating House Points to help with motivating your students
  • Food drive - Another typical school event that won’t need much additional planning! Just market it as a House challenge and inform your students of the possible points they could receive.
  • Family Fun - A great way to incorporate the entire family is by creating challenges that families can do at home. Based on the challenge, you can choose to have them submit their entries physically or through a video or picture. Then, award points to the students who have submissions or to the whole House with the most submissions. Some challenge ideas include:
  • Suck It Up – For this challenge, you will need goldfish, straws, and two plates. Without using your hands, players will need to move goldfish from one plate to the other using only the suction from the straw.
  • Rainbow Art - Create your own version of a rainbow out of any materials.
  • Self Tower - Build a tower taller than yourself. You can either have each family member build their own or all work together on one tower that’s taller than one member of the family.
House Challenge Ideas

Celebrate Your Students Unique Skills

One of the most important things a school can do to promote a positive school culture is to acknowledge and celebrate its students' diverse skill sets and capabilities. Houses have a chance to gain house points by showing off their members’ skills, from athletic abilities to superior intellect.

  • Intramural sports - Intramural sports are sports competitions that can be held between houses. The sports change within semesters and depend on the campus facilities. Students can play sports like volleyball, flag football, soccer, and basketball. This allows students who wouldn’t usually make cuts for the school's team to play on their house team. Games won can count as points towards their house.
  • Battle of the Books - With Battle of the Books, a group of students from each house would be assigned books to read and attend house competitions. At the event, houses would test their knowledge of the books they had read.
  • Mathletes - Cue all the Mean Girls fans, “The limit does not exist!” Mathletes are math athletes who compete in math competitions. The school can hold math competitions among the house’s mathletes. Students who win the math competition gain points for their house.
  • E-sports - Esports has become extremely popular over the last few years. People can now watch teams compete in online video games just like they watch teams play football. Houses can have Esports teams compete in a school tournament where they duel the other houses in common games like League of Legends and Minecraft.
House Challenge Ideas

Remember the Purpose

The ultimate purpose of having houses is to create school culture that revolves around positive student behavior. Positive student behavior can be your biggest on-going competition through each round of House Cups.

A cool way to keep the momentum of gaining positive points alive is by having house points on screens or TVs in heavy student traffic areas around the school. Students in the hallways or in their classrooms can watch as their house points go up and see who is contributing to those points on the screen. We have seen that this is a huge motivator for students since they enjoy being acknowledged publicly and contributing to accomplishments.

House Challenge Ideas

Whether your school is looking to increase engagement in the current House System or you are starting from scratch, these are just a few house event ideas schools can do to build culture and house pride. So pick a few of your favorites, try them out, and tell us how they went!

Want to supercharge your school culture? Check out our guide to developing House spirit and our database of House Name Ideas.

For more resources on Houses check out the magic happening at our partner school: Antioch Middle School.

No items found.

Subscribe via Email

Receive the best school culture resources monthly to inspire your planning.

House Challenge Ideas That Can Supercharge Your School Culture

A little friendly competition can go a long way to improving your school culture!
By 
Allison Oharriz
 | 
January 11, 2023

About the Event

House challenges can range from a 10-minute activity once a week to a multi-day or week event. It all depends on what your students and staff find valuable and entertaining. Everyone loves a little friendly competition, and the ideas below give opportunities for students of all skill sets to participate.

Keep it Short and Sweet

These competitions are short and sweet. They are perfect for quick brain breaks at the beginning of your house meetings or during lunches. The games shouldn’t take long, and staff can easily assign points to winning teams.

The teachers in us love icebreakers (for our students 😜) and we have some games that can help your students quickly get to know each other on a fundamental level while competing with the other houses.

Games Ideal for the Beginning of the Year:

  • Find your match - The host calls out for players within the same house to find someone who has something alike, i.e. favorite subject, has the same pet/no pet, is born in the same month, has the same amount of siblings, etc. The house that gets matched up the fastest in each round gets points.
  • Birthday Line Up - Have students line up by their birth date. But the catch is they cannot talk! The House that gets it done the fastest gets points.
  • Human Knot - A classic icebreaker game. Have the students within houses split up into groups of 8-10. Students in each group would stand in a circle, extend their right hand to the center, and grab someone else's right hand that wasn’t next to them. Then they extend their left hand to hold someone else's left hand that isn't next to them. The group would need to communicate and try to untangle themselves. Their hands must stay latched the entire time. The house to have all of their groups untangled first receives the most points.

Pro tip: Set up a category in your LiveSchool Rubric titled “House Challenges” and create positive buttons for each place with a certain amount of points. That way, you can create consistency between these events and every house gets some points!

House Challenge Ideas

Taking Your Challenge to the Next Level

After a few weeks of getting to know each other, it's time to have some fun. With these competitions, you will want to pick an equal number of contestants from each house to participate. Try giving different students a chance to play other games. You can even say, “we need the 3 fastest players from each house.” What they don’t realize is you’ll be looking to see who can make a paper airplane the fastest and not who the fastest runner is.

  • Party games - Yup! Think way back when to your 10th birthday party. I am talking musical chairs, bobbing for apples, pin the tail on the donkey, freeze dance, egg and spoon race, and sack race. These are oldies but goodies when it comes to quick games that are still fun to watch and participate in.
  • Minute to Win it - Just like the TV show, students and staff can participate in 60-second challenges using everyday items found in the house. Plan out the challenges ahead of time to ensure you have the necessary items for participants. Here’s a link that provides 50 Minute to Win It games for kids.
House Challenge Example

Time to Get Creative

Some schools like to mix the short games with longer challenges throughout the year. Think of typical school events like homecoming week or a food drive and then connect them to your Houses.

  • House Challenge Week - Create a theme for each day of the week and award points to the Houses that have the most participation for each theme. Some examples we’ve seen in the LiveSchool Community include House Pride day where you wear your house colors, wacky sock day, and college day.
  • Fundraiser - if your school typically does a fundraiser each year, you can consider incorporating House Points to help with motivating your students
  • Food drive - Another typical school event that won’t need much additional planning! Just market it as a House challenge and inform your students of the possible points they could receive.
  • Family Fun - A great way to incorporate the entire family is by creating challenges that families can do at home. Based on the challenge, you can choose to have them submit their entries physically or through a video or picture. Then, award points to the students who have submissions or to the whole House with the most submissions. Some challenge ideas include:
  • Suck It Up – For this challenge, you will need goldfish, straws, and two plates. Without using your hands, players will need to move goldfish from one plate to the other using only the suction from the straw.
  • Rainbow Art - Create your own version of a rainbow out of any materials.
  • Self Tower - Build a tower taller than yourself. You can either have each family member build their own or all work together on one tower that’s taller than one member of the family.
House Challenge Ideas

Celebrate Your Students Unique Skills

One of the most important things a school can do to promote a positive school culture is to acknowledge and celebrate its students' diverse skill sets and capabilities. Houses have a chance to gain house points by showing off their members’ skills, from athletic abilities to superior intellect.

  • Intramural sports - Intramural sports are sports competitions that can be held between houses. The sports change within semesters and depend on the campus facilities. Students can play sports like volleyball, flag football, soccer, and basketball. This allows students who wouldn’t usually make cuts for the school's team to play on their house team. Games won can count as points towards their house.
  • Battle of the Books - With Battle of the Books, a group of students from each house would be assigned books to read and attend house competitions. At the event, houses would test their knowledge of the books they had read.
  • Mathletes - Cue all the Mean Girls fans, “The limit does not exist!” Mathletes are math athletes who compete in math competitions. The school can hold math competitions among the house’s mathletes. Students who win the math competition gain points for their house.
  • E-sports - Esports has become extremely popular over the last few years. People can now watch teams compete in online video games just like they watch teams play football. Houses can have Esports teams compete in a school tournament where they duel the other houses in common games like League of Legends and Minecraft.
House Challenge Ideas

Remember the Purpose

The ultimate purpose of having houses is to create school culture that revolves around positive student behavior. Positive student behavior can be your biggest on-going competition through each round of House Cups.

A cool way to keep the momentum of gaining positive points alive is by having house points on screens or TVs in heavy student traffic areas around the school. Students in the hallways or in their classrooms can watch as their house points go up and see who is contributing to those points on the screen. We have seen that this is a huge motivator for students since they enjoy being acknowledged publicly and contributing to accomplishments.

House Challenge Ideas

Whether your school is looking to increase engagement in the current House System or you are starting from scratch, these are just a few house event ideas schools can do to build culture and house pride. So pick a few of your favorites, try them out, and tell us how they went!

Want to supercharge your school culture? Check out our guide to developing House spirit and our database of House Name Ideas.

For more resources on Houses check out the magic happening at our partner school: Antioch Middle School.

Register Now

About the Event

House challenges can range from a 10-minute activity once a week to a multi-day or week event. It all depends on what your students and staff find valuable and entertaining. Everyone loves a little friendly competition, and the ideas below give opportunities for students of all skill sets to participate.

Keep it Short and Sweet

These competitions are short and sweet. They are perfect for quick brain breaks at the beginning of your house meetings or during lunches. The games shouldn’t take long, and staff can easily assign points to winning teams.

The teachers in us love icebreakers (for our students 😜) and we have some games that can help your students quickly get to know each other on a fundamental level while competing with the other houses.

Games Ideal for the Beginning of the Year:

  • Find your match - The host calls out for players within the same house to find someone who has something alike, i.e. favorite subject, has the same pet/no pet, is born in the same month, has the same amount of siblings, etc. The house that gets matched up the fastest in each round gets points.
  • Birthday Line Up - Have students line up by their birth date. But the catch is they cannot talk! The House that gets it done the fastest gets points.
  • Human Knot - A classic icebreaker game. Have the students within houses split up into groups of 8-10. Students in each group would stand in a circle, extend their right hand to the center, and grab someone else's right hand that wasn’t next to them. Then they extend their left hand to hold someone else's left hand that isn't next to them. The group would need to communicate and try to untangle themselves. Their hands must stay latched the entire time. The house to have all of their groups untangled first receives the most points.

Pro tip: Set up a category in your LiveSchool Rubric titled “House Challenges” and create positive buttons for each place with a certain amount of points. That way, you can create consistency between these events and every house gets some points!

House Challenge Ideas

Taking Your Challenge to the Next Level

After a few weeks of getting to know each other, it's time to have some fun. With these competitions, you will want to pick an equal number of contestants from each house to participate. Try giving different students a chance to play other games. You can even say, “we need the 3 fastest players from each house.” What they don’t realize is you’ll be looking to see who can make a paper airplane the fastest and not who the fastest runner is.

  • Party games - Yup! Think way back when to your 10th birthday party. I am talking musical chairs, bobbing for apples, pin the tail on the donkey, freeze dance, egg and spoon race, and sack race. These are oldies but goodies when it comes to quick games that are still fun to watch and participate in.
  • Minute to Win it - Just like the TV show, students and staff can participate in 60-second challenges using everyday items found in the house. Plan out the challenges ahead of time to ensure you have the necessary items for participants. Here’s a link that provides 50 Minute to Win It games for kids.
House Challenge Example

Time to Get Creative

Some schools like to mix the short games with longer challenges throughout the year. Think of typical school events like homecoming week or a food drive and then connect them to your Houses.

  • House Challenge Week - Create a theme for each day of the week and award points to the Houses that have the most participation for each theme. Some examples we’ve seen in the LiveSchool Community include House Pride day where you wear your house colors, wacky sock day, and college day.
  • Fundraiser - if your school typically does a fundraiser each year, you can consider incorporating House Points to help with motivating your students
  • Food drive - Another typical school event that won’t need much additional planning! Just market it as a House challenge and inform your students of the possible points they could receive.
  • Family Fun - A great way to incorporate the entire family is by creating challenges that families can do at home. Based on the challenge, you can choose to have them submit their entries physically or through a video or picture. Then, award points to the students who have submissions or to the whole House with the most submissions. Some challenge ideas include:
  • Suck It Up – For this challenge, you will need goldfish, straws, and two plates. Without using your hands, players will need to move goldfish from one plate to the other using only the suction from the straw.
  • Rainbow Art - Create your own version of a rainbow out of any materials.
  • Self Tower - Build a tower taller than yourself. You can either have each family member build their own or all work together on one tower that’s taller than one member of the family.
House Challenge Ideas

Celebrate Your Students Unique Skills

One of the most important things a school can do to promote a positive school culture is to acknowledge and celebrate its students' diverse skill sets and capabilities. Houses have a chance to gain house points by showing off their members’ skills, from athletic abilities to superior intellect.

  • Intramural sports - Intramural sports are sports competitions that can be held between houses. The sports change within semesters and depend on the campus facilities. Students can play sports like volleyball, flag football, soccer, and basketball. This allows students who wouldn’t usually make cuts for the school's team to play on their house team. Games won can count as points towards their house.
  • Battle of the Books - With Battle of the Books, a group of students from each house would be assigned books to read and attend house competitions. At the event, houses would test their knowledge of the books they had read.
  • Mathletes - Cue all the Mean Girls fans, “The limit does not exist!” Mathletes are math athletes who compete in math competitions. The school can hold math competitions among the house’s mathletes. Students who win the math competition gain points for their house.
  • E-sports - Esports has become extremely popular over the last few years. People can now watch teams compete in online video games just like they watch teams play football. Houses can have Esports teams compete in a school tournament where they duel the other houses in common games like League of Legends and Minecraft.
House Challenge Ideas

Remember the Purpose

The ultimate purpose of having houses is to create school culture that revolves around positive student behavior. Positive student behavior can be your biggest on-going competition through each round of House Cups.

A cool way to keep the momentum of gaining positive points alive is by having house points on screens or TVs in heavy student traffic areas around the school. Students in the hallways or in their classrooms can watch as their house points go up and see who is contributing to those points on the screen. We have seen that this is a huge motivator for students since they enjoy being acknowledged publicly and contributing to accomplishments.

House Challenge Ideas

Whether your school is looking to increase engagement in the current House System or you are starting from scratch, these are just a few house event ideas schools can do to build culture and house pride. So pick a few of your favorites, try them out, and tell us how they went!

Want to supercharge your school culture? Check out our guide to developing House spirit and our database of House Name Ideas.

For more resources on Houses check out the magic happening at our partner school: Antioch Middle School.

About the Presenter

Allison resides in Miami, Florida. She taught at the middle school and high school levels for seven years. As the Social Media and Activities Director, she works with students to create events that motivate them in the school setting.

Subscribe via Email

Receive the best school culture resources monthly to inspire your planning.

House Challenge Ideas That Can Supercharge Your School Culture

A little friendly competition can go a long way to improving your school culture!
By 
Allison Oharriz
 | 
January 11, 2023

Positive student behavior doesn’t have to be the only way a school can give out rewards. An exciting way to continue the momentum of spirit, community, and culture in your school’s houses is to give opportunities for students to earn house points through house challenges.

House challenges can range from a 10-minute activity once a week to a multi-day or week event. It all depends on what your students and staff find valuable and entertaining. Everyone loves a little friendly competition, and the ideas below give opportunities for students of all skill sets to participate.

Keep it Short and Sweet

These competitions are short and sweet. They are perfect for quick brain breaks at the beginning of your house meetings or during lunches. The games shouldn’t take long, and staff can easily assign points to winning teams.

The teachers in us love icebreakers (for our students 😜) and we have some games that can help your students quickly get to know each other on a fundamental level while competing with the other houses.

Games Ideal for the Beginning of the Year:

  • Find your match - The host calls out for players within the same house to find someone who has something alike, i.e. favorite subject, has the same pet/no pet, is born in the same month, has the same amount of siblings, etc. The house that gets matched up the fastest in each round gets points.
  • Birthday Line Up - Have students line up by their birth date. But the catch is they cannot talk! The House that gets it done the fastest gets points.
  • Human Knot - A classic icebreaker game. Have the students within houses split up into groups of 8-10. Students in each group would stand in a circle, extend their right hand to the center, and grab someone else's right hand that wasn’t next to them. Then they extend their left hand to hold someone else's left hand that isn't next to them. The group would need to communicate and try to untangle themselves. Their hands must stay latched the entire time. The house to have all of their groups untangled first receives the most points.

Pro tip: Set up a category in your LiveSchool Rubric titled “House Challenges” and create positive buttons for each place with a certain amount of points. That way, you can create consistency between these events and every house gets some points!

House Challenge Ideas

Taking Your Challenge to the Next Level

After a few weeks of getting to know each other, it's time to have some fun. With these competitions, you will want to pick an equal number of contestants from each house to participate. Try giving different students a chance to play other games. You can even say, “we need the 3 fastest players from each house.” What they don’t realize is you’ll be looking to see who can make a paper airplane the fastest and not who the fastest runner is.

  • Party games - Yup! Think way back when to your 10th birthday party. I am talking musical chairs, bobbing for apples, pin the tail on the donkey, freeze dance, egg and spoon race, and sack race. These are oldies but goodies when it comes to quick games that are still fun to watch and participate in.
  • Minute to Win it - Just like the TV show, students and staff can participate in 60-second challenges using everyday items found in the house. Plan out the challenges ahead of time to ensure you have the necessary items for participants. Here’s a link that provides 50 Minute to Win It games for kids.
House Challenge Example

Time to Get Creative

Some schools like to mix the short games with longer challenges throughout the year. Think of typical school events like homecoming week or a food drive and then connect them to your Houses.

  • House Challenge Week - Create a theme for each day of the week and award points to the Houses that have the most participation for each theme. Some examples we’ve seen in the LiveSchool Community include House Pride day where you wear your house colors, wacky sock day, and college day.
  • Fundraiser - if your school typically does a fundraiser each year, you can consider incorporating House Points to help with motivating your students
  • Food drive - Another typical school event that won’t need much additional planning! Just market it as a House challenge and inform your students of the possible points they could receive.
  • Family Fun - A great way to incorporate the entire family is by creating challenges that families can do at home. Based on the challenge, you can choose to have them submit their entries physically or through a video or picture. Then, award points to the students who have submissions or to the whole House with the most submissions. Some challenge ideas include:
  • Suck It Up – For this challenge, you will need goldfish, straws, and two plates. Without using your hands, players will need to move goldfish from one plate to the other using only the suction from the straw.
  • Rainbow Art - Create your own version of a rainbow out of any materials.
  • Self Tower - Build a tower taller than yourself. You can either have each family member build their own or all work together on one tower that’s taller than one member of the family.
House Challenge Ideas

Celebrate Your Students Unique Skills

One of the most important things a school can do to promote a positive school culture is to acknowledge and celebrate its students' diverse skill sets and capabilities. Houses have a chance to gain house points by showing off their members’ skills, from athletic abilities to superior intellect.

  • Intramural sports - Intramural sports are sports competitions that can be held between houses. The sports change within semesters and depend on the campus facilities. Students can play sports like volleyball, flag football, soccer, and basketball. This allows students who wouldn’t usually make cuts for the school's team to play on their house team. Games won can count as points towards their house.
  • Battle of the Books - With Battle of the Books, a group of students from each house would be assigned books to read and attend house competitions. At the event, houses would test their knowledge of the books they had read.
  • Mathletes - Cue all the Mean Girls fans, “The limit does not exist!” Mathletes are math athletes who compete in math competitions. The school can hold math competitions among the house’s mathletes. Students who win the math competition gain points for their house.
  • E-sports - Esports has become extremely popular over the last few years. People can now watch teams compete in online video games just like they watch teams play football. Houses can have Esports teams compete in a school tournament where they duel the other houses in common games like League of Legends and Minecraft.
House Challenge Ideas

Remember the Purpose

The ultimate purpose of having houses is to create school culture that revolves around positive student behavior. Positive student behavior can be your biggest on-going competition through each round of House Cups.

A cool way to keep the momentum of gaining positive points alive is by having house points on screens or TVs in heavy student traffic areas around the school. Students in the hallways or in their classrooms can watch as their house points go up and see who is contributing to those points on the screen. We have seen that this is a huge motivator for students since they enjoy being acknowledged publicly and contributing to accomplishments.

House Challenge Ideas

Whether your school is looking to increase engagement in the current House System or you are starting from scratch, these are just a few house event ideas schools can do to build culture and house pride. So pick a few of your favorites, try them out, and tell us how they went!

Want to supercharge your school culture? Check out our guide to developing House spirit and our database of House Name Ideas.

For more resources on Houses check out the magic happening at our partner school: Antioch Middle School.

All Reward Ideas for Students

🎉
👑
🎁
Talk Time
Grades 6-8
Student
Privilege
Free
🎉
👑
🎁
Silly Science Experiments
Grades K-5
Class/House
Privilege
Low Cost/DIY
🎉
👑
🎁
Student Messenger
Grades 3-8
Student
Privilege
Free
🎉
👑
🎁
School Dance
Grades 9-12
School
Event
Low Cost/DIY
🎉
👑
🎁
Backpack
Grades K-12
Student
Tangible
Deluxe
🎉
👑
🎁
Awards Show Afterparty
Grades 6-12
School
Event
Free
🎉
👑
🎁
Certificate of Achievement
Grades K-12
Student
Privilege
Free
🎉
👑
🎁
Books
Grades K-12
Student
Tangible
Low Cost/DIY
🎉
👑
🎁
Homework Pass
Grades 6-12
Student
Privilege
Free
🎉
👑
🎁
Game Week
Grades 9-12
School
Event
Low Cost/DIY
🎉
👑
🎁
Camp Read Away
Grades K-8
Class/House
Event
Free
🎉
👑
🎁
Movie Night
Grades 9-12
Student
Event
Low Cost/DIY
🎉
👑
🎁
Teacher v Student Competition
Grades 6-12
School
Privilege
Free
🎉
👑
🎁
Art Contest
Grades 3-12
Class/House
Event
Free
🎉
👑
🎁
Technology
Grades 6-12
Student
Tangible
Deluxe
🎉
👑
🎁
Water Bottle Stickers
Grades 6-12
Student
Tangible
Low Cost/DIY

All Reward Ideas for Elementary School Students

🎉
👑
🎁
Class Book
Grades K-5
Student
Privilege
Free
🎉
👑
🎁
Snack Pack
Grades K-12
Student
Tangible
Low Cost/DIY
🎉
👑
🎁
School Supplies & Merch
Grades K-12
Student
Tangible
Deluxe
🎉
👑
🎁
Lunch with an Admin
Grades K-8
Student
Privilege
Low Cost/DIY
🎉
👑
🎁
Toys
Grades K-8
Student
Tangible
Low Cost/DIY
🎉
👑
🎁
Game of Thrones
Grades K-5
Student
Privilege
Free
🎉
👑
🎁
Lunch With the Teacher
Grades K-5
Student
Privilege
Free
🎉
👑
🎁
Line Leader
Grades K-5
Student
Privilege
Free
🎉
👑
🎁
Pen Pouch
Grades K-8
Student
Tangible
Low Cost/DIY
🎉
👑
🎁
Trunk or Treat
Grades K-8
School
Event
Low Cost/DIY
🎉
👑
🎁
Camp Read Away
Grades K-8
Class/House
Event
Free
🎉
👑
🎁
Certificate of Achievement
Grades K-12
Student
Privilege
Free
🎉
👑
🎁
Backpack
Grades K-12
Student
Tangible
Deluxe
🎉
👑
🎁
Teacher Q&A
Grades K-12
Class/House
Privilege
Free
🎉
👑
🎁
Free Dress
Grades K-12
Student
Privilege
Free
🎉
👑
🎁
Snowball Fights (& Popsicles!)
Grades K-8
Class/House
Event
Low Cost/DIY

All Event Ideas for Schools

All Free Reward Ideas for Schools

🎉
👑
🎁
Parking Spots
🎉
👑
🎁
Tutor
🎉
👑
🎁
Show & Tell
🎉
👑
🎁
Extra Reading Time
🎉
👑
🎁
Extra Recess
🎉
👑
🎁
Art Contest
🎉
👑
🎁
Meet the Teacher
🎉
👑
🎁
Free Dress
🎉
👑
🎁
Play Games
🎉
👑
🎁
Teacher Serenade
🎉
👑
🎁
Locker Choice

All Reward Ideas for High School Students

🎉
👑
🎁
Lost & Found Fashion Show
Grades 9-12
School
Event
Free
🎉
👑
🎁
Seating Choice
Grades K-12
Student
Privilege
Free
🎉
👑
🎁
Amazing Race
Grades 9-12
Class/House
Event
Low Cost/DIY
🎉
👑
🎁
Books
Grades K-12
Student
Tangible
Low Cost/DIY
🎉
👑
🎁
Picnic Lunch
Grades K-12
Class/House
Privilege
Low Cost/DIY
🎉
👑
🎁
Loudspeaker Shoutout
Grades K-12
Student
Privilege
Free
🎉
👑
🎁
♟️Chess With the Principal
Grades 6-12
Student
Privilege
Low Cost/DIY
🎉
👑
🎁
Wristband
Grades K-12
Student
Tangible
Low Cost/DIY
🎉
👑
🎁
Blood Drive
Grades 9-12
School
Event
Free
🎉
👑
🎁
Awards Show Afterparty
Grades 6-12
School
Event
Free
🎉
👑
🎁
Gift Cards
Grades 6-12
Student
Privilege
Deluxe
🎉
👑
🎁
Certificate of Achievement
Grades K-12
Student
Privilege
Free
🎉
👑
🎁
Holiday Delivery
Grades K-12
Student
Tangible
Low Cost/DIY
🎉
👑
🎁
Pie a Teacher
Grades K-12
Student
Privilege
Low Cost/DIY
🎉
👑
🎁
Host a Virtual Party. 🎶
Grades 6-12
Class/House
Event
Free
🎉
👑
🎁
Decades Party
Grades 6-12
School
Event
Low Cost/DIY

All Reward Ideas for Middle School Students

🎉
👑
🎁
Board Game Party
Grades 3-12
Class/House
Privilege
Low Cost/DIY
🎉
👑
🎁
Social Media Reporter
Grades 3-12
Student
Privilege
Free
🎉
👑
🎁
Toys
Grades K-8
Student
Tangible
Low Cost/DIY
🎉
👑
🎁
Gift Cards
Grades 6-12
Student
Privilege
Deluxe
🎉
👑
🎁
Pie a Teacher
Grades K-12
Student
Privilege
Low Cost/DIY
🎉
👑
🎁
Show & Tell
Grades K-8
Student
Privilege
Free
🎉
👑
🎁
School Spirit Day
Grades K-12
School
Privilege
Free
🎉
👑
🎁
Cut the Principal’s Tie
Student
Privilege
Free
🎉
👑
🎁
Homework Pass
Grades 6-12
Student
Privilege
Free
🎉
👑
🎁
Class Jobs
Grades 3-8
Student
Privilege
Free
🎉
👑
🎁
Teacher Q&A
Grades K-12
Class/House
Privilege
Free
🎉
👑
🎁
Uber by a Principal
Grades 6-12
Student
Privilege
Free
🎉
👑
🎁
Holidays Around the World
Grades K-12
School
Event
Low Cost/DIY
🎉
👑
🎁
Sweatshirt
Grades K-12
Student
Tangible
Deluxe
🎉
👑
🎁
Dance Party
Grades K-12
Student
Event
Free
🎉
👑
🎁
Read Across America
Grades K-8
School
Event
Free

All Student Reward & Incentive Ideas

💰
🎨
Snack Party
Grades 3-12
Class/House
Privilege
Low Cost/DIY
💰
🎨
Be a Comedian.
Grades 6-12
Student
Privilege
Free
💰
🎨
Brain Break
Grades K-12
Student
Privilege
Free
💰
🎨
Student Messenger
Grades 3-8
Student
Privilege
Free
💰
🎨
Hallway High-Five
Grades K-12
Student
Privilege
Free
💰
🎨
Tutor
Grades 6-8
Student
Privilege
Free
💰
🎨
Pie a Teacher
Grades K-12
Student
Privilege
Low Cost/DIY
💰
🎨
Follow a Friend
Grades 6-8
Student
Privilege
Free
💰
🎨
Seat Swap
Grades 3-5
Student
Privilege
Free
💰
🎨
Principal for a Day
Grades K-8
Student
Privilege
Free
💰
🎨
Show & Tell
Grades K-8
Student
Privilege
Free
💰
🎨
Extra Reading Time
Grades K-5
Student
Privilege
Free
💰
🎨
Donate $1
Grades 3-12
Student
Privilege
Low Cost/DIY
💰
🎨
Teacher Q&A
Grades K-12
Class/House
Privilege
Free
💰
🎨
Technology
Grades 6-12
Student
Tangible
Deluxe
💰
🎨
Line Leader
Grades K-5
Student
Privilege
Free

All Virtual Reward Ideas for Schools

🎉
👑
🎁
Teacher Q&A
Grades K-12
Class/House
Privilege
Free
🎉
👑
🎁
Social Media Reporter
Grades 3-12
Student
Privilege
Free
🎉
👑
🎁
Morning Meeting Leader
Grades 3-8
Student
Privilege
Free
🎉
👑
🎁
Digital Escape Rooms
Grades 6-12
Class/House
Privilege
Deluxe
🎉
👑
🎁
Certificate of Achievement
Grades K-12
Student
Privilege
Free
🎉
👑
🎁
Classroom DJ
Grades K-12
Student
Privilege
Free
🎉
👑
🎁
Host a Virtual Party. 🎶
Grades 6-12
Class/House
Event
Free
🎉
👑
🎁
Student Spotlight Board
Grades K-5
Student
Privilege
Low Cost/DIY
🎉
👑
🎁
Stickers
Grades K-5
Student
Tangible
Low Cost/DIY
🎉
👑
🎁
Donate $1
Grades 3-12
Student
Privilege
Low Cost/DIY
🎉
👑
🎁
Brain Break
Grades K-12
Student
Privilege
Free
🎉
👑
🎁
Virtual Field Trip
Grades K-12
Class/House
Privilege
Free
🎉
👑
🎁
Podcast
Grades 3-12
Student
Privilege
Free
🎉
👑
🎁
Positive Note or Call Home
Grades K-12
Student
Privilege
Free
🎉
👑
🎁
Show & Tell
Grades K-8
Student
Privilege
Free
🎉
👑
🎁
Extra Computer Games
Grades 3-12
Student
Privilege
Free
See all Rewards

Want more ideas?

Rewards that Rock 🎸 has 100+ rewards, incentives, and event ideas to build your school culture.
Find Rewards
Learn more about the author, 
Allison Oharriz
 

Subscribe via Email

Receive the best school culture resources monthly to inspire your planning.

House Challenge Ideas That Can Supercharge Your School Culture

A little friendly competition can go a long way to improving your school culture!
By 
Allison Oharriz
 | 
January 11, 2023

Positive student behavior doesn’t have to be the only way a school can give out rewards. An exciting way to continue the momentum of spirit, community, and culture in your school’s houses is to give opportunities for students to earn house points through house challenges.

House challenges can range from a 10-minute activity once a week to a multi-day or week event. It all depends on what your students and staff find valuable and entertaining. Everyone loves a little friendly competition, and the ideas below give opportunities for students of all skill sets to participate.

Keep it Short and Sweet

These competitions are short and sweet. They are perfect for quick brain breaks at the beginning of your house meetings or during lunches. The games shouldn’t take long, and staff can easily assign points to winning teams.

The teachers in us love icebreakers (for our students 😜) and we have some games that can help your students quickly get to know each other on a fundamental level while competing with the other houses.

Games Ideal for the Beginning of the Year:

  • Find your match - The host calls out for players within the same house to find someone who has something alike, i.e. favorite subject, has the same pet/no pet, is born in the same month, has the same amount of siblings, etc. The house that gets matched up the fastest in each round gets points.
  • Birthday Line Up - Have students line up by their birth date. But the catch is they cannot talk! The House that gets it done the fastest gets points.
  • Human Knot - A classic icebreaker game. Have the students within houses split up into groups of 8-10. Students in each group would stand in a circle, extend their right hand to the center, and grab someone else's right hand that wasn’t next to them. Then they extend their left hand to hold someone else's left hand that isn't next to them. The group would need to communicate and try to untangle themselves. Their hands must stay latched the entire time. The house to have all of their groups untangled first receives the most points.

Pro tip: Set up a category in your LiveSchool Rubric titled “House Challenges” and create positive buttons for each place with a certain amount of points. That way, you can create consistency between these events and every house gets some points!

House Challenge Ideas

Taking Your Challenge to the Next Level

After a few weeks of getting to know each other, it's time to have some fun. With these competitions, you will want to pick an equal number of contestants from each house to participate. Try giving different students a chance to play other games. You can even say, “we need the 3 fastest players from each house.” What they don’t realize is you’ll be looking to see who can make a paper airplane the fastest and not who the fastest runner is.

  • Party games - Yup! Think way back when to your 10th birthday party. I am talking musical chairs, bobbing for apples, pin the tail on the donkey, freeze dance, egg and spoon race, and sack race. These are oldies but goodies when it comes to quick games that are still fun to watch and participate in.
  • Minute to Win it - Just like the TV show, students and staff can participate in 60-second challenges using everyday items found in the house. Plan out the challenges ahead of time to ensure you have the necessary items for participants. Here’s a link that provides 50 Minute to Win It games for kids.
House Challenge Example

Time to Get Creative

Some schools like to mix the short games with longer challenges throughout the year. Think of typical school events like homecoming week or a food drive and then connect them to your Houses.

  • House Challenge Week - Create a theme for each day of the week and award points to the Houses that have the most participation for each theme. Some examples we’ve seen in the LiveSchool Community include House Pride day where you wear your house colors, wacky sock day, and college day.
  • Fundraiser - if your school typically does a fundraiser each year, you can consider incorporating House Points to help with motivating your students
  • Food drive - Another typical school event that won’t need much additional planning! Just market it as a House challenge and inform your students of the possible points they could receive.
  • Family Fun - A great way to incorporate the entire family is by creating challenges that families can do at home. Based on the challenge, you can choose to have them submit their entries physically or through a video or picture. Then, award points to the students who have submissions or to the whole House with the most submissions. Some challenge ideas include:
  • Suck It Up – For this challenge, you will need goldfish, straws, and two plates. Without using your hands, players will need to move goldfish from one plate to the other using only the suction from the straw.
  • Rainbow Art - Create your own version of a rainbow out of any materials.
  • Self Tower - Build a tower taller than yourself. You can either have each family member build their own or all work together on one tower that’s taller than one member of the family.
House Challenge Ideas

Celebrate Your Students Unique Skills

One of the most important things a school can do to promote a positive school culture is to acknowledge and celebrate its students' diverse skill sets and capabilities. Houses have a chance to gain house points by showing off their members’ skills, from athletic abilities to superior intellect.

  • Intramural sports - Intramural sports are sports competitions that can be held between houses. The sports change within semesters and depend on the campus facilities. Students can play sports like volleyball, flag football, soccer, and basketball. This allows students who wouldn’t usually make cuts for the school's team to play on their house team. Games won can count as points towards their house.
  • Battle of the Books - With Battle of the Books, a group of students from each house would be assigned books to read and attend house competitions. At the event, houses would test their knowledge of the books they had read.
  • Mathletes - Cue all the Mean Girls fans, “The limit does not exist!” Mathletes are math athletes who compete in math competitions. The school can hold math competitions among the house’s mathletes. Students who win the math competition gain points for their house.
  • E-sports - Esports has become extremely popular over the last few years. People can now watch teams compete in online video games just like they watch teams play football. Houses can have Esports teams compete in a school tournament where they duel the other houses in common games like League of Legends and Minecraft.
House Challenge Ideas

Remember the Purpose

The ultimate purpose of having houses is to create school culture that revolves around positive student behavior. Positive student behavior can be your biggest on-going competition through each round of House Cups.

A cool way to keep the momentum of gaining positive points alive is by having house points on screens or TVs in heavy student traffic areas around the school. Students in the hallways or in their classrooms can watch as their house points go up and see who is contributing to those points on the screen. We have seen that this is a huge motivator for students since they enjoy being acknowledged publicly and contributing to accomplishments.

House Challenge Ideas

Whether your school is looking to increase engagement in the current House System or you are starting from scratch, these are just a few house event ideas schools can do to build culture and house pride. So pick a few of your favorites, try them out, and tell us how they went!

Want to supercharge your school culture? Check out our guide to developing House spirit and our database of House Name Ideas.

For more resources on Houses check out the magic happening at our partner school: Antioch Middle School.

All Reward Ideas for Students

🎉
👑
🎁
Snacks
Grades K-12
Student
Tangible
Low Cost/DIY
🎉
👑
🎁
Snack Party
Grades 3-12
Class/House
Privilege
Low Cost/DIY
🎉
👑
🎁
Trip to the Treasure Box
Grades K-5
Student
Privilege
Low Cost/DIY
🎉
👑
🎁
Be a Comedian.
Grades 6-12
Student
Privilege
Free
🎉
👑
🎁
Virtual Talent Show. 🎤
Grades 3-12
Class/House
Event
Free
🎉
👑
🎁
Classroom DJ
Grades K-12
Student
Privilege
Free
🎉
👑
🎁
The Big Ticket
Grades 9-12
Student
Privilege
Free
🎉
👑
🎁
Final Fridays
Grades K-8
School
Event
Low Cost/DIY
🎉
👑
🎁
Free Dress
Grades K-12
Student
Privilege
Free
🎉
👑
🎁
Tutor
Grades 6-8
Student
Privilege
Free
🎉
👑
🎁
Show & Tell
Grades K-8
Student
Privilege
Free
🎉
👑
🎁
Career Day
Grades 3-12
School
Event
Low Cost/DIY
🎉
👑
🎁
Stickers
Grades K-5
Student
Tangible
Low Cost/DIY
🎉
👑
🎁
Emcee the Announcements
Grades 6-12
Student
Privilege
Free
🎉
👑
🎁
Class Book
Grades K-5
Student
Privilege
Free
🎉
👑
🎁
Drop Lowest Quiz
Grades 3-12
Student
Privilege
Free

All Reward Ideas for Elementary School Students

🎉
👑
🎁
Video Game Rewards
Grades 3-12
Student
Privilege
Low Cost/DIY
🎉
👑
🎁
Game of Thrones
Grades K-5
Student
Privilege
Free
🎉
👑
🎁
Loudspeaker Shoutout
Grades K-12
Student
Privilege
Free
🎉
👑
🎁
Principal for a Day
Grades K-8
Student
Privilege
Free
🎉
👑
🎁
Lunch With the Teacher
Grades K-5
Student
Privilege
Free
🎉
👑
🎁
Lunch with an Admin
Grades K-8
Student
Privilege
Low Cost/DIY
🎉
👑
🎁
Toys
Grades K-8
Student
Tangible
Low Cost/DIY
🎉
👑
🎁
Firebird of the Month
Grades K-12
Student
Event
Low Cost/DIY
🎉
👑
🎁
Extra Computer Games
Grades 3-12
Student
Privilege
Free
🎉
👑
🎁
Virtual Field Trip
Grades K-12
Class/House
Privilege
Free
🎉
👑
🎁
Show & Tell
Grades K-8
Student
Privilege
Free
🎉
👑
🎁
Podcast
Grades 3-12
Student
Privilege
Free
🎉
👑
🎁
Sweatshirt
Grades K-12
Student
Tangible
Deluxe
🎉
👑
🎁
Dance Party
Grades K-12
Student
Event
Free
🎉
👑
🎁
Family Feast
Grades K-8
Class/House
Event
Deluxe
🎉
👑
🎁
Partner Work
Grades 3-12
Student
Privilege
Free

All Event Ideas for Schools

💰
🎨
The Love Soiree
💰
🎨
Kickback Vibes
💰
🎨
STEM Field Day
💰
🎨
Karaoke Night
💰
🎨
Fake The Funk
💰
🎨
Decades Party
💰
🎨
Movie Night
💰
🎨
The A-List
💰
🎨
Final Fridays
💰
🎨
School Dance
💰
🎨
Meet the Teacher
💰
🎨
Game Week

All Free Reward Ideas for Schools

🎉
👑
🎁
Extra Reading Time
🎉
👑
🎁
Play Games
🎉
👑
🎁
Be a Comedian.
🎉
👑
🎁
Student Messenger
🎉
👑
🎁
Parking Spots
🎉
👑
🎁
Show & Tell
🎉
👑
🎁
The Big Ticket
🎉
👑
🎁
Classroom DJ
🎉
👑
🎁
Line Leader
🎉
👑
🎁
Follow a Friend
🎉
👑
🎁
Teacher Q&A

All Reward Ideas for High School Students

🎉
👑
🎁
Teacher Q&A
Grades K-12
Class/House
Privilege
Free
🎉
👑
🎁
School Supplies & Merch
Grades K-12
Student
Tangible
Deluxe
🎉
👑
🎁
Operate Equipment.
Grades 9-12
Student
Privilege
Free
🎉
👑
🎁
Classroom DJ
Grades K-12
Student
Privilege
Free
🎉
👑
🎁
Glow Party
Grades 6-12
School
Event
Deluxe
🎉
👑
🎁
Stairway Messages
Grades 9-12
Class/House
Event
Free
🎉
👑
🎁
Be a Comedian.
Grades 6-12
Student
Privilege
Free
🎉
👑
🎁
Locker Choice
Grades 9-12
Student
Privilege
Free
🎉
👑
🎁
Game Week
Grades 9-12
School
Event
Low Cost/DIY
🎉
👑
🎁
Create the Seating Chart
Grades 6-12
Student
Privilege
Free
🎉
👑
🎁
Sweatshirt
Grades K-12
Student
Tangible
Deluxe
🎉
👑
🎁
Holidays Around the World
Grades K-12
School
Event
Low Cost/DIY
🎉
👑
🎁
Pie a Teacher
Grades K-12
Student
Privilege
Low Cost/DIY
🎉
👑
🎁
Career Day
Grades 3-12
School
Event
Low Cost/DIY
🎉
👑
🎁
Get-to-Know-You Bingo
Grades 6-12
Class/House
Event
Free
🎉
👑
🎁
Digital Escape Rooms
Grades 6-12
Class/House
Privilege
Deluxe

All Reward Ideas for Middle School Students

🎉
👑
🎁
Family Feast
Grades K-8
Class/House
Event
Deluxe
🎉
👑
🎁
Art Contest
Grades 3-12
Class/House
Event
Free
🎉
👑
🎁
Graduation Celebration
Grades 6-12
School
Event
Deluxe
🎉
👑
🎁
Sweatshirt
Grades K-12
Student
Tangible
Deluxe
🎉
👑
🎁
Virtual Field Trip
Grades K-12
Class/House
Privilege
Free
🎉
👑
🎁
Movie Posters
Grades 3-12
Student
Tangible
Low Cost/DIY
🎉
👑
🎁
Get-to-Know-You Bingo
Grades 6-12
Class/House
Event
Free
🎉
👑
🎁
Show & Tell
Grades K-8
Student
Privilege
Free
🎉
👑
🎁
Wristband
Grades K-12
Student
Tangible
Low Cost/DIY
🎉
👑
🎁
Seating Choice
Grades K-12
Student
Privilege
Free
🎉
👑
🎁
Assist the Custodian.
Grades 6-8
Student
Privilege
Free
🎉
👑
🎁
Pie a Teacher
Grades K-12
Student
Privilege
Low Cost/DIY
🎉
👑
🎁
Donate $1
Grades 3-12
Student
Privilege
Low Cost/DIY
🎉
👑
🎁
Awards Show Afterparty
Grades 6-12
School
Event
Free
🎉
👑
🎁
Hallway High-Five
Grades K-12
Student
Privilege
Free
🎉
👑
🎁
Firebird of the Month
Grades K-12
Student
Event
Low Cost/DIY

All Student Reward & Incentive Ideas

💰
🎨
Video Game Rewards
Grades 3-12
Student
Privilege
Low Cost/DIY
💰
🎨
Snack Party
Grades 3-12
Class/House
Privilege
Low Cost/DIY
💰
🎨
Hallway High-Five
Grades K-12
Student
Privilege
Free
💰
🎨
Movie Posters
Grades 3-12
Student
Tangible
Low Cost/DIY
💰
🎨
Student Messenger
Grades 3-8
Student
Privilege
Free
💰
🎨
Emcee the Announcements
Grades 6-12
Student
Privilege
Free
💰
🎨
Color a Teacher’s Hair
Grades 9-12
Student
Privilege
Low Cost/DIY
💰
🎨
Be a Comedian.
Grades 6-12
Student
Privilege
Free
💰
🎨
Design the Bulletin Board
Grades K-12
Class/House
Privilege
Low Cost/DIY
💰
🎨
Parking Spots
Grades 9-12
Student
Privilege
Free
💰
🎨
Passing Period Music
Grades 3-12
Student
Privilege
Free
💰
🎨
Sports Tickets
Grades 3-12
Student
Tangible
Deluxe
💰
🎨
Operate Equipment.
Grades 9-12
Student
Privilege
Free
💰
🎨
Line Leader
Grades K-5
Student
Privilege
Free
💰
🎨
Student Spotlight Board
Grades K-5
Student
Privilege
Low Cost/DIY
💰
🎨
Certificate of Achievement
Grades K-12
Student
Privilege
Free

All Virtual Reward Ideas for Schools

🎉
👑
🎁
Morning Meeting Leader
Grades 3-8
Student
Privilege
Free
🎉
👑
🎁
Podcast
Grades 3-12
Student
Privilege
Free
🎉
👑
🎁
Brain Break
Grades K-12
Student
Privilege
Free
🎉
👑
🎁
Classroom DJ
Grades K-12
Student
Privilege
Free
🎉
👑
🎁
Extra Computer Games
Grades 3-12
Student
Privilege
Free
🎉
👑
🎁
Virtual Talent Show. 🎤
Grades 3-12
Class/House
Event
Free
🎉
👑
🎁
Stickers
Grades K-5
Student
Tangible
Low Cost/DIY
🎉
👑
🎁
Social Media Reporter
Grades 3-12
Student
Privilege
Free
🎉
👑
🎁
Positive Note or Call Home
Grades K-12
Student
Privilege
Free
🎉
👑
🎁
Student Spotlight Board
Grades K-5
Student
Privilege
Low Cost/DIY
🎉
👑
🎁
Teacher Q&A
Grades K-12
Class/House
Privilege
Free
🎉
👑
🎁
Virtual Field Trip
Grades K-12
Class/House
Privilege
Free
🎉
👑
🎁
Digital Escape Rooms
Grades 6-12
Class/House
Privilege
Deluxe
🎉
👑
🎁
Certificate of Achievement
Grades K-12
Student
Privilege
Free
🎉
👑
🎁
Host a Virtual Party. 🎶
Grades 6-12
Class/House
Event
Free
🎉
👑
🎁
Show & Tell
Grades K-8
Student
Privilege
Free
See all Rewards

Want more ideas?

Rewards that Rock 🎸 has 100+ rewards, incentives, and event ideas to build your school culture.
Find Rewards
Learn more about the author, 
Allison Oharriz
 

Subscribe via Email

Receive the best school culture resources monthly to inspire your planning.

Bring a positive culture to life with school-wide points

Schedule a Demo