April Fools’ Day is the perfect opportunity to bring laughter and fun into your classroom! If you’re looking for simple, low-prep ways to celebrate, you’re in the right place. These April Fools’ Day classroom activities are designed to keep students engaged while sprinkling in a bit of surprise and humor. From silly spelling tests to simple classroom pranks, these ideas will have your students talking about their April Fools’ Day fun for weeks to come!
Looking for an April Fool’s prank for students that’s harmless but hilarious? Try this classic teacher trick!
Tell your students that you baked them a sweet treat—brownies! When you reveal the pan, they’ll see BROWN Es instead. After the big reveal, you can make it up to them with a real prepackaged brownie, like a Cosmic Brownie.
Another fun version of this prank involves Cheerios—or should we say, Cheery-Os! Announce that you brought a special snack, then uncover a bowl filled with slips of paper that are “Cheery-Os!”
Students can create a craft of a brown E or a cereal bowl, then write about the prank their teacher pulled on them!
Time for an April Fools’ spelling test that will have your students giggling!
How It Works: Hand out a spelling test recording sheet and explain that you’ll be assessing their spelling skills. Then, with a serious face, call out ridiculous words like “flibberflop” or “zoodleberry.” Use them in a sentence to really sell the joke!
The Big Reveal: Watch as students struggle to spell these nonsense words before they finally catch on! This is a great way to encourage creativity and laughter in the classroom.
Jokes are a fantastic way to bring humor into the classroom while also reinforcing fluency and expression in reading.
Share knock-knock jokes with your students using websites, books, or premade cards. Then, have them choose their two favorites to record in a Knock-Knock Joke Booklet.
Get creative and let students become joke authors! Encourage them to write an original knock-knock jokes to share with the class.
A silly, educational way to celebrate April Fool’s Day is with tongue twisters!
Fun Challenge: Display tongue twisters on slides or print them onto cards for students to read aloud. You can go with the classics such as Peter Piper or Fuzzy Wuzzy, or use anything with alliteration. Challenge them to say each one three times fast—the sillier the struggle, the better!
Create Your Own: Students can use alliteration and a topic of their choice to craft their own tongue twister. Then, they can make a craft featuring a mouth and tongue to showcase their creation!
Want to trick your students in a fun way? Give them an April Fool’s word search—but here’s the catch: it’s impossible to solve!
How It Works: Hand out a word search that appears normal, but the listed words are nowhere to be found! Instead, hidden within the puzzle is “HAPPY APRIL FOOLS’ DAY.”
Holiday Hat: Once students realize the joke, let them celebrate by making April Fools’ Day headbands to wear for the rest of the day!
Reading is always a great way to add humor to the classroom! Here are some April Fools’ Day picture books and funny read-alouds that will have your students laughing out loud.
Whether you want an April Fools’ Day-themed story or just a humorous book, these titles will make your class giggle while reinforcing literacy skills.
April Fools’ Day in the classroom doesn’t have to be chaotic—it can be a fun and engaging way to bring joy and creativity to your students! Whether you pull off a classic prank, get students to write jokes, or surprise them with a tricky word search, these April Fool’s Day classroom activities are sure to make April 1st a memorable day.
And once April Fool’s Day over, head over to our Poetry Writing Ideas and Freebies to gear up for National Poetry Month!
Hey, y’all! My name is Amy Lemons and I am passionate about providing students with both engaging and effective standards-based Math and ELA lessons.
Sample a day of Rooted in Reading with these lesson plans and activities for Reading Comprehension, Vocabulary, and Grammar!
2 Responses
Just a quick question. Do you have any certain reading response pages you created to go with books for April Fool’s Day?
Hi! So sorry I missed this, but this is the only April Fools’ Day specific activities I have: https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/April-Fools-Day-Activity-Word-Search-Prank-Spelling-Test-Reading-History-13224978
However, I do have this set of reading response printables that can go with any book! Here’s that link: https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Reading-Comprehension-Graphic-Organizers-Response-Printables-for-Any-Book-2701603