Hogmanay (pronounced “hug-m’nay” with stress on the last syllable) is the Scots’ word for the last day of the year, December 31st (generally known outside of Scotland as “New Year’s Eve”). Hogmanay is of course a day of celebration, and in fact the start of a period of celebration that includes December 31st (officially known as “Auld Year’s Night”), January 1st (known in Scotland as “Ne’erday”, and elsewhere as “New Year’s Day”), and January 2nd which in Scotland is a public holiday (a “Scottish Bank Holiday”).
There are many customs and traditions associated with Hogmanay, some national, others local. A particularly popular and widespread tradition is “first footing”, which begins immediately after the midnight transition to the New Year. First footing involves being the first to cross the threshold of a neighbor and giving a symbolic gift intended to bring luck to the householder – such symbolic gifts may include salt (although this is becoming less common nowadays), whisky, shortbread, black bun (a type of rich fruit cake), or even coal.
Another Hogmanay tradition is the singing of “Auld Lang Syne”. This is a traditional Scottish poem that was reinterpreted by Scottish romantic poet, Robert Burns, and later set to music. In fact, this Scottish tradition (along with the eating of Haggis and playing New Year in with bagpipes) is now a popular New Year activity not just in Scotland, but around the world.
Many people enjoy bring in the New Year with drinking and dancing, but even for people who prefer something more laid back, there is still the opportunity to spend time with friends and family. Hogmanay is also a wonderful time for family gatherings and parties, and of course party would be complete without party games!
One party game that you ought to consider is bingo. Bingo is great for family, church and community gatherings because it is so easy to play (everybody either already knows how or can learn very quickly), and because it is suitable for people of all ages – as well as being a lot of fun!
Of course, if you’re playing bingo at New Year, you’ll want to play the game with a Hogmanay or New Year theme. One way that you can do this is that instead of playing bingo with traditional numbered bingo cards, you can print up (using your computer) some cards containing word or phrases relating to the New Year festivities. The nice thing is that it’s very easy to print custom bingo cards from your computer – you can simple use some cheap bingo card maker software to do the job – and the best thing is, you can use that software again and again, either at future New Year celebrations, or for other celebrations or holidays.
By: Sunil Tanna
Bingo is an increasingly popular activity with teachers looking for interesting, challenging, and fun activities to use as teaching aids in their classrooms. There are many reasons why this is happening, but underlying all of them is the fact that teachers are recognizing the suitability of bingo to educational environments. For example, teachers know that bingo is not only easy for students to learn (and fun for them to play), but they also can see the game can be easily adapted to different subjects or lesson plans, and that it can be played using ordinary inexpensive materials.
Pretty much all educational variants of bingo are played using special custom bingo cards. These cards are printed with items specific to the subject of the lesson being taught, rather than the usual numbers, so for example, in an English class, the items might be words that students are learning to read, in a science class, the items might be names of chemicals or elements, and in a geography class, the items might be names of cities, states or countries.
Bingo is particularly suitable for use in math classes; this is because there are a variety of ways to play the game. For example, the bingo cards might be printed with math problems, and students must write in the (correct) answers rather than simply mark items from their cards. Or the cards might contain numbers, and when the teacher calls out a problem, the student must find the corresponding number. Or when teaching fractions, the same number might be presented in different ways (e.g. 3/6 versus 2/4 versus 1/2), and students might be required to solve this type of conversion problem in order to get an item marked off their card.
For all the different educational versions of bingo, the main thing that teachers need is suitable bingo cards. The best way to get them is to print them from your computer – get some bingo card generator software, and it becomes very easy to generate as many as you want. This is much better and cheaper than buying preprinted bingo cards, because you can use the software again and again, and you can also customize the cards’ content to your heart’s content.
By: Sunil Tanna
Bingo is a game that has been popular with the older generation for many years. Many of our grandparents may still frequent the bingo halls that are making a come back up and down the country. With the increase in leisure time that we are all seemingly enjoying bingo has been one of the largest growth industries within the leisure business over the past few years with many of the large bingo companies investing very heavily in modernizing their bingo halls and facilities to try to lure in a new wave of bingo players.
Bingo’s attraction is its simplicity, you buy a card of random numbers and a caller shouts out the numbers that are selected at random by a computer. You then mark these numbers off of your card, attempting to win the game by marking off all of the numbers on your card before anyone else. If you are the first to do so then you will win the first prize which is usually a cash prize.
There are different variations on standard “full house” bingo where you may be the winner if you mark off all of the numbers that appear in the corner of your card, some games involve just achieving a full line of your card. The variations on the games are endless, most bingo company’s offer differing variations on the bingo theme.
But bingo is not just a game to be enjoyed in a bingo hall; one of the biggest aspects of online gaming is online bingo. The game is played in exactly the same way but from the comfort of your own home where you play against people from all over the world for cash prizes.
If you are unfamiliar with how to play bingo playing online is a great place to learn as you can join one of the play money games and learn the rules and get to a level where you feel confident enough to play for real money. If you would rather not play for money and just stick with the play money games then you can do so, it is all pretty relaxed really.
If you want to play bingo with your family you can simply download one of many printable bingo card sets from the internet. There are software packages available that enable you to theme your bingo cards to a theme, perhaps a birthday or family occasion. Whatever the occasion bingo makes great entertainment for the whole family and will provide hours of fun for all.
By: Harwood E Woodpecker
