How to Share Activities in Google Classroom, Step by Step
Of all the questions teachers send us, this is the most common and the quickest to answer: how do I send a game or a coloring page home through Classroom? The answer fits in one line — copy the link and paste it — but around that line there are a couple of decisions and small tricks that separate an assignment families actually open from one that dies in the feed. Here's the whole thing, five minutes of reading.
The secret is that there's no secret: everything has its own address
Every game and every printable on the site has its own address. The maze lives at its own URL, every page in the printables section has one too — the dog coloring page, the dinosaur, each with a link of its own — and the same goes for every puzzle and every game. Which means sharing an activity is literally copying what's in the browser bar and pasting it wherever families will see it.
No need to write directions ("go to the site, find the section, pick the dog"): the link lands them exactly there. And since the site has no sign-up and no login, on the other end the link just opens and the child plays. There are no passwords for twenty-five kids to create, hand out and reset when they're forgotten — which, let's be honest, is why so many "classroom platforms" end up unused.
The steps in Classroom
Assuming your class is already set up in Classroom (if your school uses it, it almost certainly is), the path is short. Open the class and go to the Classwork tab. Click Create and choose what kind of post you want: Material for something to explore freely, or Assignment if you expect them to complete it and maybe turn something in.
Inside the post you'll see the option to attach a link (the little chain icon): paste the address you copied from the site there. Give it a title families understand at a glance — "Animal maze" beats "Activity 12" — and assign it to the class. Done: when a family taps the link on a phone or tablet, the game opens right in the browser.
If a button name doesn't match exactly what you see (Google moves things around now and then), don't sweat it: the logic never changes. Find where you create a new post and where you attach a link, and you're there.
Material or Assignment? The one distinction worth making
It's the only real decision in the whole process, and teachers who've used Classroom for years are crystal clear about it. Material is for free play: "here are the jigsaw puzzles for the weekend." It creates no to-dos, shows up as nothing "missing," nobody feels behind. Assignment is for when you expect something back — the classic case is a coloring page: the family prints it, the child colors it, and a photo of the result comes back as the submission. That round trip works beautifully with the youngest kids, because the "deliverable" is a drawing they're proud of.
One common mistake worth avoiding: posting everything as an Assignment. When every game generates a pending submission, families start experiencing Classroom as a list of debts, and what was a game becomes a chore. Material for playing, Assignment for anything with a product — that rule never fails.
Three tips from teachers who do this every week
One instruction, not five. Next to the link, a single line: "play two rounds on easy," "find the way out of the maze and tell me tomorrow how you did it." Posts with long paragraphs of context don't get read; the one-line instruction does, and it gives the family something concrete to do in ten minutes.
Schedule the post for the weekend. Classroom lets you pick when a post goes live. Seasoned teachers schedule the activity for Saturday morning, when families actually have time. The same post on a Wednesday at 7 p.m. competes with dinner, bath time and everyone's exhaustion.
Repeat the game — don't switch every week. Sending the memory game two or three weeks in a row isn't a lack of imagination: kids this age love repetition and learn from it, and the family already knows what to do without reading anything. Switch when the enthusiasm fades, not before.
What if your school doesn't use Classroom?
No problem at all, because the method is the link, not the platform. The class's family group chat works exactly the same way: paste the link, add your one-line instruction, and families open it with a tap — for many it's actually easier, since they check their messages every day anyway. And if your school communicates through a paper folder or home-school notebook, a hand-written address works too: a short URL copies into the browser at home with no mystery. Slower than a tappable link, sure, but it gets there — and entire classrooms do it exactly that way.
Frequently asked questions
Do kids need an account on the site to open what I share?
No. The site has no sign-up, accounts or passwords: the link opens and they play. All they need is the Classroom account the school already uses — and if you share via a group chat or a paper note, not even that.
Does it work on the school's tablets and computers?
Yes. Everything runs in the browser, nothing to install. If the device can open a web page, it can open the games — school tablets, aging laptops and the family phone alike.
Can I share one specific coloring page rather than the whole section?
Yes — every page has its own URL. Open the exact drawing you want — the dog, the dinosaur, the Christmas one — and copy the address from there: the link goes straight to that page with its print button.