Do you typically find yourself scrambling for fun April Fools’ Day pranks at the last minute? Not this year! We’re helping you plan ahead with a bunch of fun ideas from upper elementary teachers in our free Inspired In Upper Elementary Facebook group.

Academic April Fools’ Day Pranks

• Assign mountains of homework. Keep adding more homework with each new subject throughout the day. Then at the end of the day… APRIL FOOLS!
• Give students an unsolvable word search that doesn’t actually have any of the words in it. Tell students it’s a race with an enticing prize for the first to complete it. After letting them hunt for a little while… APRIL FOOLS!
• Show students this fictional marshmallow farming video. Seriously assign them the task of taking notes about the main idea and three supporting details.
• Here’s another fictional video about flying penguins. Have students take note for a quiz at the end!
• Assign a very important pop quiz. Tell them it’s a really major part of their grade and lay it on thick. Remind them of the importance of reading all directions and answering questions carefully. Hidden in the (very long) directions, it says to turn the paper over and say nothing because you don’t have to answer any questions.
• Assign a set of task cards written in another language and very seriously act like you don’t see the problem with them.
• Is Earth flat? This free close reading activity certainly says it is!
• Give a spelling test with a bunch of bogus words.
• Denise from Sunny Days sends students on a hilarious hunt for Lirpaloof Birds.

Just for Fun Pranks

• One teacher convinced her students that the school was running out of money and they had to sell the desks. Students unloaded everything, hauled the desks to the hallway to be “picked up” and worked on the floor all day. All the classrooms were in on the joke! At the end of the day, admin got on the mic and announced “April Fools!”
• Give your class an entire set of iPads (eye pads).
• Turn all desks around so when students sit down and try to open the lids they won’t be able to.
• Have a “flood drill” and where students have to stand on chairs to stay dry.
• Switch all of the chairs with a kindergarten classroom. The kindergarten students will LOVE having big chairs for the day and your upper elementary students will need to squish into the tiny chairs.

Food April Fools’ Day Pranks

I know not all schools are allowed to have edible treats. If you are, here’s a section just for that.

• Give students your favorite new treat, baker’s chocolate. It has a bitter, unsweetened flavor. Yuck!
• Make a big deal about a unique new snack you’ve found. Then give your students a bag of “donut seeds” that are actually Cheerios.
• Use a die cutter to make “Brown Es” and announce brownies for everyone! Give each student a napkin and paper treat.

What is YOUR favorite April Fools’ Day prank? Come join the discussion and share with us!