Image: Miniclip School Yard Pilot
'There is an alien invasion in your school – rally your schoolmates and destroy the aliens.'

You've packed your satchel, put your cap on, rescued your school tie from the back of the sofa and gone back. To cushion the blow, here’s ten back to school games to play as found by Surefish High's Head Girl Suzanne Elvidge

All games are free downloads or free to view online, and need the minimum of equipment. Some games require your browser to have a 'plug in' for Shockwave, Flash or Java.

To play a game, simply click on its name. If you are a parent, we advise you to try the game and the site it's on first before letting your kids play them, to make sure you're happy. Don't forget, you can also find great games for kids at Christian Aid's Global Gang website

When downloading games from the Internet, don't forget to keep your anti-virus and anti-spyware software up to date.

How to Survive Your First Day Back at School
Full in the blanks to see how your first day will go. A few things you might need to remember – verbs are generally ‘doing’ words and adjectives are words that change the meaning of nouns (‘naming’ words). Play adjective and verb games if you want some practice.

School Travel Challenge
Can you get to school safely? Pick the length of journey and your method of travel, read the text message on the mobile phone and play the game by clicking on the flashing question marks and answering the questions.

The School Yard Pilot
Not that I would encourage throwing paper planes at school, but… pick your lesson, design your plane, use the mouse to select strength and angle of throw, and aim for the X on the black board.

Driving School
How good are you at parking? Try parallel parking and parking in a car park using only the keyboard. Left and right arrow steer, up arrow moves the car forward and the down arrow reverses (and tapping the arrow in the opposite direction of movement outs your brakes on).

School Invaders
There is an alien invasion in your school – rally your schoolmates and destroy the aliens. There are clues and power-ups hidden around the school. The left mouse button controls the player and the space bar shoots aliens. I never actually left the first classroom, but you may do better!

Back to School drag and drop puzzle
Move the puzzle pieces to where you think they should go. It’s as simple as that!

Take That, Teacher
Aim your paper plane at the teachers and who see you can hit. If you hit the Head, you lose a life. If you want to be sensible, play some reading and word games about school.

Back to School match game
Match up the pairs of pictures in this memory game.

The Blue School Bag
Pack your bag with the things you need to take to school. However, watch out for the things you don’t need…

Back to School
Help Lil’G save his friends from Summer School in this series of platform games. Move around using the arrow keys and jump using the space bar. The ‘S’ key will use any objects you find and the ‘A’ key will fire weapons (use the arrow keys to aim). ‘C’ will call a friend for advice.

Links to some learning games

• Word games

• Science games

• Reading and spelling games

• Art games

• Other games

• surefish.co.uk culture section index

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