Most adults are familiar with the game of bingo – we’ve came across the game at some points in our lives. It is true that many us of think of it as a game played in church and community halls in funding raising efforts, or by groups of seniors as a relaxing way of passing the time, but one thing you may not know is that bingo is becoming increasingly popular in education.
Many teachers have come to the conclusion that bingo is well suited to classroom use, because it is easy for students to learn and play, does not require expensive specialist materials, does not make a big mess, and is highly adaptable to teaching different subjects, different lesson plans, and different age groups. When organized by enthusiastic teacher, bingo can indeed be both fun and educational.
As hinted at previously, bingo can be used in a variety of educational environments, including teaching K-12, and for teaching older students. The game can be adapted to almost any subject including English and Reading, English as a Second Language (ESL), Foreign Languages (including Spanish, French, German and Italian), Math, Science, History and more. The main way that the game is adapted to each of these situations is by using custom bingo cards printed with items appropriate to the lesson, and by modifying the game play mechanics. In a K-12 reading class for example, students might just be required to recognize sight words, in a math class the students might be required to write in the answers to math problems into the squares rather than simply cross off squares, and in a foreign language class the bingo cards could be printed in one language but the calss made in another (for example, bingo cards printed with Spanish vocabulary – and students need to match up these words to bingo calls made in English).
By: Sunil Tanna
Arithmetic is the oldest and simplest branch of mathematics. It also the first branch of mathematics which students encounter, beginning with counting, and then graduating to simple calculations such as adding, subtracting, multiplication and division. Eventually of course, students will encounter other branches of mathematics, such as geometry, trigonometry and algebra, but nevertheless understanding arithmetic continues to be an essential skill. After all, arithmetic is an essential foundation not only for other branches of mathematics, but also numerous areas of everyday life, including business, science and technology.
Like so many other things in life, practice makes perfect in math – the more math and arithmetic that students do, the better they get. While practice can certainly help many students, the other side of the coin is that excessive repetition can soon get boring – and bored students do not learn very well. Good teachers are however very well aware that new styles of presentation, interesting activities, and educational games, can all be used to provide some variation in classroom routines, enlivening what might otherwise seem mundane. One such activity that more and more teachers are turning to, is in fact the game of bingo.
There are many ways that bingo can be uses in math classes – one of the most attractive things about bingo is that it can be very easily adapted to different situations. Perhaps the most popular way of playing bingo in math classes, is for the teacher to act as bingo caller, and the students to each be given a specially printed bingo card containing math problems – instead of marking off items as they are called, students must fill them out with the correct answers.
The main thing that you need to play math bingo is of course the bingo cards printed with math problems. Fortunately that’s easy – you can simply print them from your computer – free ready-made math bingo printables, or easy-to-use bingo card creator software makes the job easy.
By: Sunil Tanna
When teaching geography, it’s not at all unusual to want your students to learn lists of items (such as countries, states of the United States, cities, capitals, rivers, or mountains), and perhaps also some associated details of each item in such lists. Of course, rote learning can be very boring for students, and tends to be easily forgotten – so what is needed is a fun but educational way for students to learn the information while remaining motivated. It is for this reason that many geography teachers are always on the lookout for new classroom games and activities to perform with their students.
One such activity that is worth considering (especially since it is flexible enough to be adapted to many different classroom situations) is bingo. The basic idea is quite simple – each student is given a bingo card containing a different combination of the list of items that need to be learned, the teacher acts as the caller, and then you play bingo – however there are many possible variations on the basic idea:
- You could, for example, instead of calling out the items on the cards directly, give the students clues which they have to match up to the items on their cards. For example, instead of calling “Paris”, you might say “The capital of France”.
- You can also use the game as a tool to encourage participation and discussion in the class. During the game, you could ask students to explain each item that you call out before you move on to the next item.
- Another idea is to play normally, but with the added requirement that when a student claims “Bingo!”, he only actually wins if he can describe each item that he ticked off his card. If students are aware of this requirement in advance, and really want to win the game, this can be a great extra incentive to study harder.
Of course, all this sounds like a great idea, but it’s only a workable idea if you can actually get suitable printed supplies to play the game. In the past, this would have required sending off for expensive specialist materials, but today there are much easier solution: print everything from your computer. You can get ready-made free printables for geography bingo off the Internet, and there is even affordable software is available that makes it simple to print customized bingo cards (containing whatever items you want).
By: Sunil Tanna
