Free Jeopardy Template Options for Class Review

Free Jeopardy Templates: Which One to Use

Yes. A free browser game maker is the fastest way to run a Jeopardy review in class. A Google Slides or PowerPoint deck is the better pick if you need an editable file you keep. At Chalkbox, we build practical classroom tools and write guides to help teachers prepare lessons without wasting planning periods on complicated setups. If you have ten minutes before the bell, typing prompts into an online board gets your lesson running immediately. If you need offline access or want to customize slide graphics for an annual curriculum unit, building or downloading a slide deck is the better route.

Teachers generally pick between four methods to set up a classroom review game: browser makers, Google Slides presentations, PowerPoint files, or spreadsheet-driven generators. Each method involves tradeoffs between setup speed, automatic tile tracking, and offline reliability.

For a zero-prep session, an online tool like the Chalkbox Jeopardy Game Maker runs directly inside your browser window without accounts or file downloads. External sites like JeopardyLabs also provide online game creation without registration, along with a public library of games created by other users. If your lesson requires embedded formulas, audio clips, or automated scoreboards for large student groups, review our list of JeopardyLabs alternatives to find tools tailored to complex media.

When your school restricts external websites or you want to store your questions alongside your district curriculum slides, a custom presentation file is the safer choice. You can find free slide layouts on template sites like SlidesCarnival and graphic design platforms like Canva, or you can build your own linked deck from scratch.

How to Build a Jeopardy Board in Google Slides

A custom Google Slides board gives you complete control over your fonts, colors, and graphics. You set up a board slide, add one slide per clue, and link them so you can jump back and forth during the game.

1. Build the board slide. Open a blank presentation and create a table with five columns and six rows. Enter your category headers in the top row, then type point values (100, 200, 300, 400, and 500) down each column. Center the text and enlarge the font so students can read the grid from the back of the classroom.
2. Generate the clue slides. Add twenty-five blank slides after your board slide. For each clue, add a text box with the question prompt and specify the category and point value at the top of the slide so players stay oriented. If you want to show the correct response on screen, add an answer slide right after each clue slide. That gives you 50 clue and answer slides plus the board.
3. Link point values to clue slides. Return to your board slide and highlight the "100" text in your first category column. Choose Insert > Link, select "Slides in this presentation," and click the specific slide containing that clue.
4. Add return buttons on every clue slide. Insert a shape or text box labeled "Back to Board" in the corner of your first clue slide. Highlight the object, open the link menu, and link it directly to Slide 1 (your board slide). Copy this button and paste it onto every clue and answer slide in the deck.
5. Launch slideshow mode. Enter presentation mode by clicking the "Slideshow" button in the upper right corner. Test your links by clicking a point value to jump to the clue, then clicking your return button to navigate back to the main grid.

Because Google Slides links only function while the presentation is in full slideshow mode, avoid presenting from the standard edit view. In a slide deck, clicked point values do not change color or disappear after you view them. To prevent students from picking the same question twice, designate a student scorekeeper to cross off completed tiles on your classroom whiteboard.

Setting Up a Jeopardy Template in PowerPoint

A review game in Microsoft PowerPoint uses the same layout as Google Slides, but the link menus have different labels. A local PowerPoint file works entirely offline, making it reliable for classrooms with intermittent internet access.

To construct your grid, open a new presentation and insert a table matching your desired category and point structure. Once you have created your subsequent clue slides, highlight a point value on your main board slide to attach an internal link. Go to the top menu ribbon, select Insert, click Link (or Hyperlink), and choose the option labeled "Place in This Document" from the sidebar menu. Select the corresponding slide title or slide number from your presentation outline and click OK.

To make navigation functional during gameplay, insert a return shape on your clue slides. Draw an arrow or rectangle, right-click the shape, select Link, and point the address back to "Place in This Document > Slide 1." Copy that shape across all remaining clue slides.

To run your game, launch full presentation mode by selecting Slide Show > From Beginning or pressing F5. The internal hyperlinks will only respond to mouse clicks while the slide show engine is running. Like Google Slides, PowerPoint does not gray out played squares. Cross them off by hand, or leave presentation mode between rounds and shade the played cell dark.

Board Layout and a Sample Game

A full television Jeopardy board uses six categories with five clues each, requiring thirty distinct prompts per round. For a single class period, a five-category board with five clues per category is often easier to complete without rushing through explanations.

Your slide count depends on whether you reveal answers on screen or read them aloud:

• Board slide: 1 slide for the main point grid.
• Clue slides: 25 slides for a 5 × 5 board (or 30 slides for a 6 × 5 board).
• Answer slides: 25 optional slides if you display the correct response before returning to the grid.
• Final question slide: 1 or 2 slides for an end-of-game wager round.

A complete 5 × 5 game deck with dedicated answer slides requires 51 to 53 total slides. If you keep the answers in your personal teacher notes, you can cut the total presentation size down to 26 slides.

To help you organize your review categories, the sample grid below demonstrates a 5 × 5 board structured for an introductory ecosystem and biology unit. You can explore our collection of Jeopardy categories for school to find inspiration for other grade levels and subjects.

If you prefer formatting your game through a spreadsheet rather than individual slides, Flippity Quiz Show offers a structured Google Sheets template. You copy the sheet to your personal Google account, enter up to thirty questions across your chosen categories, and publish the spreadsheet to the web. Flippity generates a web game link that includes built-in team scorekeeping and supports embedded media such as YouTube videos or Desmos graphs. The Flippity Quiz Show page linked in the table above does not state pricing.

Running Games with the Chalkbox Jeopardy Game Maker

When you do not want to spend half an hour linking slides or managing spreadsheet sharing permissions, the Chalkbox Jeopardy Game Maker provides an instant setup. It opens directly in your browser with a clean 5 × 5 board showing five categories and clue point values from 100 to 500.

In edit mode, you click any category box to type your topic title, then type a clue and an answer into the two fields under each point value. Once filled, you switch to play mode and project your screen to the class. Clicking a point value opens the clue in large text for the room. The Reveal answer button shows the answer. Closing the clue grays out that tile on the board.

The Jeopardy Game Maker requires no user account, involves no software downloads, and saves no information to external servers. Everything you enter lives locally in your browser session. If you refresh the tab or close your browser, the data resets. To reuse a game across the week, keep your questions and answers in a document and paste them back in before class.

The Jeopardy Game Maker does not export data to PowerPoint or Google Slides, contains no student buzzer system, and does not calculate running team scores. You can track team points on the free classroom scoreboard and use our classroom timer to keep student responses on schedule.

How to Select and Run Your Review Session

Choose your game format based on the time you have available and how you plan to manage gameplay. If your lesson begins in fifteen minutes, open an online browser board, enter your review terms, and run the session from your projector screen. If you teach an annual unit and want to build a permanent presentation deck that colleagues can modify, create a linked Google Slides or PowerPoint file.

Presentation slide decks work well when you need total ownership over the design, but they require you to manage scorekeeping and tile tracking by hand. For other game formats, see the best free classroom review game platforms or the steps to turn a worksheet into a game.

Our recommendation would change if classroom presentation software added native, one-click trivia linking with automatic tile tracking. To prepare your next review session, select five core topics from your study guide and enter your first twenty-five questions into a Jeopardy template today.