Football World Cup Activities for Children + FREE Activity Pack
The Football World Cup has a way of completely taking over family life for a few weeks. Children are collecting football stickers, spotting flags everywhere and copying dramatic player celebrations across the kitchen floor… even the least football-interested children somehow get swept up in the excitement!
This year’s tournament being hosted in America does make things slightly trickier for UK families. Some matches are playing very late, which means many children will probably be catching highlights over breakfast rather than staying up for the final whistle.
But there are still lots of easy ways to bring that Football World Cup excitement into the daytime too. Here are some easy Football World Cup activities for children, with plenty of learning sneaking in along the way too.
We’ve also created a FREE Football World Cup Activity Pack packed with football puzzles, colouring pages, match predictors and more.
Football World Cup Ideas for Kids
- Follow the tournament together
- Learn about the countries taking part
- Design your own football kits
- Make football decorations
- Create football chants
- Make match nights more interactive
- Try a football commentary challenge
- Encourage writing through football
- Encourage a love of football through play
- Download the FREE Football World Cup Activity Pack
1. Keep up with the tournament
Half the fun of the World Cup is keeping up with the scores, spotting which teams are through and predicting who might make it to the final.
Children love recognising teams, spotting patterns and choosing favourites surprisingly quickly once the tournament gets going.
Children get surprisingly invested once they start recognising teams, choosing favourites and checking who won overnight.
Our FREE Football World Cup Activity Pack below includes:
- a knockout tournament tracker
- “matches I’ve watched” pages
- match prediction sheets for before the game starts
Children can colour in stars, record scores, rate matches and keep track of who is still in the competition as the tournament unfolds.
You could even use the Busy Things Graph Maker to create your own World Cup predictions and compare scores and statistics as the tournament goes on.
2. Learn about the countries taking part
With so many countries involved, children often start asking questions they wouldn’t normally think about… Where is Morocco? What language is spoken there? Which flag is that? Why is everyone wearing yellow and green? How far away is Argentina?
The World Cup is a brilliant opportunity to explore different countries together without it feeling like a geography lesson.
You could:
- try foods from different countries
- learn how to say “goal!” in another language
- find teams on a map
- spot flags during the matches
- choose a country to support as a family (even if that is entirely based on who has the best kit!)
Our FREE Football World Cup Activity Pack includes a printable flag matching activity, and children can also explore countries and flags with the interactive flag matching activity on Busy Things.
Match flags to countries from around the world with the interactive flag matching activity on Busy Things.
3. Design your own football kits
Football tournaments are full of bright colours, giant flags and memorable team kits — and children quickly start noticing which ones stand out.
Some love the bold goalkeeper shirts, others become very opinionated about stripes, badges or which country has the best colours.
You could challenge children to:
- design a home kit
- create an away strip
- invent a team badge
- choose colours for a brand-new football team
Busy Things also includes an interactive football kit design activity where children can create their own shirts, colours and patterns.
Design your own football kit with colours, badges and patterns using the interactive football kit activity on Busy Things.
4. Make football decorations and crafts
A few simple football crafts and decorations can make even a highlights show or family match night feel much more exciting for children.
And the good news is, most football-themed crafts are very easy to throw together with things you already have at home.
Easy football craft ideas include:
- homemade bunting
- mini paper flags
- football posters
- score signs
- paper chains in your chosen team’s colours
- cardboard football trophies
- homemade supporter signs
You could even let children decorate a “match night table” for snacks and drinks.
These kinds of football craft activities are also a good way to keep children involved in the excitement of the World Cup during the daytime, especially with so many matches kicking off late this year.
5. Create your own football chants
Part of the fun of a big football tournament is all the noise and atmosphere around it — the singing, chanting, cheering and energy from the crowd.
Bring some of that atmosphere home by getting children involved in making up chants or silly football songs together.
You could try:
- chants for your chosen country
- songs for favourite players
- goal celebration chants
- clap rhythms for penalties
This is also a fantastic way to encourage confidence, vocabulary, rhyme and rhythm without it feeling remotely “educational”.
Use Busy Publisher on Busy Things to write your own chants, create song sheets and print them out for everyone to join in.
6. Make match nights more interactive
A football match is a long time for a child. There is plenty of excitement, but there are also quieter moments, half-time breaks and long VAR checks where attention can start drifting elsewhere.
Adding a few interactive activities can make watching the game feel much more exciting and help children feel properly involved in the tournament atmosphere.
You could:
- make pre-match predictions — the score, who will score first or whether there will be penalties
- play Football Bingo and look out for things like dramatic goalkeeper saves, player celebrations, crowd singing or VAR checks
- try a freeze-frame challenge — pause the TV and ask: What happens next? What might the commentator say? What caption would you give this moment?
Our FREE Football World Cup Activity Pack includes ready-made football bingo cards and match prediction sheets to make it easy to join in.
Download the FREE Football World Cup Activity Pack to print your own football bingo cards, prediction sheets and match activities.
7. Try a football commentary challenge
Football commentators do much more than just describe what is happening in the match. They build excitement, tell the story of the game and somehow make every near miss sound incredibly dramatic.
It is surprisingly fun to have a go yourselves! Try turning the sound down for a few minutes and taking turns becoming the commentators instead.
Encourage children to really listen to how football commentators speak – what words do they use? How do they build excitement? How do they make ordinary moments sound important?
This is a brilliant activity for building vocabulary, speaking confidence, storytelling and expression in voice without it feeling structured or “educational”.
8. Encourage reluctant writers with football
Football can be a surprisingly good way to encourage children who normally avoid writing.
When children already care about the subject, writing often feels much easier and more purposeful. A dramatic last-minute goal or controversial penalty suddenly gives them something they actually want to talk about.
You could encourage them to:
- write a football match report
- create a football player profile
- invent a newspaper headline
- describe a winning goal
- interview a “famous footballer”
Busy Things also includes football-themed writing activities including football match reports and football player profiles.
Write your own football match reports on Busy Things and turn dramatic moments into headlines and match commentary.
Create your own football player profile on Busy Things including clubs, goals, position and player statistics.
9. Encourage a love of football through play
The best way to get children involved in the excitement of football is very simple — play it!
You do not need a proper pitch, expensive equipment or organised teams. Some of the most fun football moments happen in the garden, hallway or living room with improvised goals and made-up rules.
Try:
- paper ball football indoors
- penalties into a washing basket
- dribbling around shoes or cushions
- weaker-foot challenges
- keepy-uppy competitions
- target practice games
These kinds of quick football games are brilliant for getting children moving, building confidence and helping them feel part of all the World Cup excitement.
Warm up, stretch and get moving with Workout with Dog and Cat on Busy Things.
10. Download the FREE Football World Cup Activity Pack
Our FREE Football World Cup Activity Pack is packed with football-themed activities to help children join in with all the excitement of the tournament this summer.
Inside the pack you will find:
- tournament trackers
- football bingo
- match predictor sheets
- football logic puzzle
- World cup wordsearch
- football colouring pages
- Design a football kit
- flag matching activity
Perfect for match nights and keeping the football excitement going between games.
The football fun does not have to stop there either.
Busy Things is packed with hundreds of curriculum-linked games and activities designed to make learning genuinely fun for children aged 3–11. From maths and phonics to geography, coding, art, music and science, there are interactive games, creative tools, quizzes, videos and printable activities covering a huge range of subjects and interests.
So whether your child is currently football-mad, obsessed with flags and countries, or just enjoying the excitement of the tournament, there is plenty more to explore.