Most people are familiar with the game of bingo and how to play it. It may be that we have played the game at some point in our lives ourselves, or it may be that we have simply seen others play it and learnt that way – the rules are that easy to pick-up. One thing however that many people are not aware of, is that bingo can be adapted for use in schools and education, and these modified variants of the game, can be useful classroom tool.
The beauty of bingo in the classroom is that it provides an interesting and stimulating activity for students, but can easily be adapted for teaching almost any subject, whether that be reading, English, math, a foreign language such as French, German, Italian or Spanish, or almost anything else.
Although in some cases it may be necessary for the teacher to vary the rules of the game slightly, the main change in educational versions of bingo is the content of the bingo cards. In the traditional game of bingo, the bingo cards are printed with numbers, however in classroom versions of the game, the cards are instead printed with items of the teachers choice – these can be words, phrases, math problems or anything else that the teacher chooses.
Using these custom bingo cards, the game is then played. In an introductory level reading class, students may simply be required to find the matching item when a word is called out by the teacher. However, in a math class, the students may be required to correctly solve the problems in a square in order to mark it off, and in a language class, the cards might be printed with words in French or Spanish, and the students might be required to find the matching word when the teacher makes bingo calls in English.
By: Sunil Tanna
I think it would be fair to say that most adults know how to play the game of bingo. This is no doubt because of the widespread popularity of the game, and the fact that the game is very easy to learn. What you may not know, is that bingo, and variations of the game of bingo are proving to be increasingly popular in educational and learning situations.
Nobody would deny that one of the challenges faced by teachers is how to get their students to engage with the subject being taught. Enjoyable classroom activities such as bingo, can be of help with this problem. Of course, an enjoyable activity serves little purpose unless it helps teach the subject – but the good news is that bingo can be adapted to teaching a variety of different school subjects.
The key step in adapting bingo to classroom use, is the introduction of custom bingo cards. As you know, in the standard game of bingo, the bingo cards are simply printed with a set of numbers. In classroom versions of the game, the cards are instead printed with words, phrase, math problems or even musical symbols (depending on the subject being taught), of the teacher’s choice. Additionally, if the teacher chooses to, he or she may also modify the rules of the game slightly. Some examples of educational bingo applications might include:
* Sight word bingo – Used in introductory reading classes: The bingo cards are printed with words that the students simply have to find (often words from the Dolch Sight Word list, or simply lists).
* Vocabulary bingo – Used in language classes: The bingo cards are printed with French, German, Italian or Spanish words, and the students must find the matching word when the teacher calls out an English word.
* Math bingo – The bingo cards are printed with math problems that the students must not only find, but also solve.
By: Sunil Tanna
