April Fools' Day provides classroom teachers with a great opportunity to prank their students - as well as engage them with meaningful educational activities related to the fun holiday.
Below, find 11 different easy joke ideas to make April Fools' Day memorable in the classroom. Then, check out the lesson ideas to help you integrate an April Fools' Day theme into your lessons!
April Fools' Day Prank Ideas for Upper Elementary Teachers
1. An Impossible Maze
Give students a maze that cannot be completed. You can do this with a normal maze for fun, like these mazes - or add an academic twist that not only fools them but also gets them practicing a skill!
For example, in this maze, students are asked to shade in any number less than 4,678 to complete it. They will get to the end of the maze before they realize it cannot be completed!
2. An Impossible Scavenger Hunt
If your students have already completed one of my fun reading scavenger hunts (and even if they haven't!), then this is the perfect prank for them.
Send students on a word scavenger hunt, looking for words on bulletin boards, in textbooks, on word walls, etc. that fit specific prompts.
In the non-prank version, the prompts are findable and help students practice different decoding skills, like:
- find a word that starts with the prefix 'un-'
- find a word that rhymes with flat
- find a word that has 4 syllables
In this prank version, the prompts are extremely difficult to impossible to complete, like:
- find a word that rhymes with orange
- find a word that starts with 'tch'
- find a word that has no vowels
See how long students search before realizing these prompts are a prank!
3. Eat A Bug
This quick, harmless prank inspired by this teacher Reddit thread is guaranteed to get a big reaction.
Put a chocolate-covered raisin on your desk in the morning. Later, act startled, yell “SPIDER!”, smash it with a book, and then casually eat it. Your students will be equal parts shocked and impressed.
4. Rearrange Desks In A Crazy Way
5. Flood Drill
This is a popular prank on this April Fools' Day Reddit thread for teachers.
Tell students the district has a new emergency drill that all of the classrooms need to practice - a flood drill. Have everyone take off shoes, stand on their chairs, and lift their shoes over their heads. If possible, snap a quick picture before letting them in on the joke.
6. Nonsense Word Spelling Test
Surprise students with a spelling test - but use only nonsense words!
If you provide decodable nonsense words, then you could learn a few things during the prank - like what phonics skills students might need to review. For example, asking students to spell a word like promercenbile could reveal how well they understand r-controlled vowels, VCe, soft c, and more.
Some possible nonsense words you could use are:
- promercenbile
- delormantary
- graniforple
- inderlate
- noscriptory
- flanipomple
- floompertion
7. Mystery Cat
Get one of these meowing sound devices, hide it somewhere around the room, and turn it on. It will meow at irregular intervals, causing your students to seek out a nonexistant cat loose in the classroom!
Or, try this cricket sound device or this annoying battery beep sound device.
8. Extra Advanced "Quiz"
9. Brown-E Treats
This is a classic.
Cut some E's out of brown paper, put them in a foil-covered container, and then tell your student you brought them brownies. Then, watch their faces fall as you pull out a paper E for each of them.
Having real brownies ready for them after the joke makes it even more fun!
10. An Impossible Word Search
11. Trade Classrooms With Another Teacher
After the Prank: April Fools' Day Lesson Ideas
1. A History of April Fools' Day Pranks
This fun resource contains a reading passage that discusses some of the best April Fools' Day TV pranks throughout history. Students will read about Smellovision, the spaghetti hoax, and other pranks that have tricked people all over the world into believing something that wasn't real.
After reading the passage, students complete a timeline comprehension activity, answer test questions, and design their own TV prank! And as an added bonus, some fake test questions are included to help you easily pull your own April Fools' Day Prank. 🙂
2. April Fools' Day Writing Prompts
Need a quick writing prompt for April Fools' Day? Try one of these:
- Best Prank Ever: Explain what the best April Fools’ Day prank is and why. (If students need extra scaffolding, use these opinion writing sentence & paragraph frames.)
- The Prank that Backfired: Write a fictional story about someone who planned the perfect prank...until it went completely wrong. What happened?
- The Prankster and the Pranked: Describe an April Fools’ Day prank from two perspectives: the prankster’s point of view and the person being pranked.(You might also like these other point of view activity ideas.)
- I Promise It's Real: Write a persuasive piece convincing readers to believe something outrageous or unlikely.
- When Does A Joke Go Too Far? Explain the difference between a fun prank and one that is hurtful.
3. Comparing 2 Pranks
This extended constructed response resource is perfect for April Fools' Day! Students will read and write about:
- Mary Baker, a woman who persuaded people all over England that she was really Princess Cariboo from the made-up island of Javasu.
- The Spaghetti Hoax - the time a TV news station convinced people all over England that spaghetti really grew on trees!
Extend this lesson by letting students watch the actual video that a British news station aired to trick viewers into believing that spaghetti grew on trees! This makes a great lesson in thinking critically about what you read and watch.
4. That Doesn't Make Sense
Have your students read a passage with intentional errors for them to find. We do this with grammar all the time - but it's even better for helping students monitor their comprehension as they read!
Need some texts with intentional errors? Check out my monitoring comprehension resource.