Most people are familiar with the game of bingo. Many of us probably think of it as a child’s game, or perhaps as a game played by older people at social events. However what many people are not aware of is that variations on the game of bingo have proven useful in an educational environment, and many teachers have found ways to make use of the game in their classrooms.
To recap the idea of the game that each player is given a card containing a grid of squares, and each square traditional contains a number. The umpire or bingo caller then calls out the number in a random order, and players have to check squares off their cards as the corresponding numbers are called out. The goal of the game is to be the first player to shout “Bingo!” or “House!” on achieving a win number of checked off squares (the winning criteria can be varied and need to be agreed before starting to play – typically, achieving a line or lines of consecutive checked off items is the criteria).
When using the game in the classroom, the game mechanics are, broadly speaking, unchanged (the teacher acts as the bingo caller, and the students are the players). However, what is changed is the items on the cards. Instead of using the bingo cards simply with numbers, they can be printed with words, phrases, mathematical puzzles or even musical symbols. The teacher can also vary the game play by instead of calling out the items on the cards, calling out clues that lead to the items – for example, in a French class, the teacher might call out words in English, and students have to find the corresponding French word printed on their bingo card.
Of course, applying bingo in a classroom in this way will require special bingo cards containing items of the teachers choice. This might sound daunting to any teachers considering the idea – preparing a lot of bingo cards by hand, or even with a word processor, could be a lot of work. Fortunately there is an easy solution – specialist bingo card software that can be used to print the cards – simply enter a list of items to appear on the cards, and the software can print as many bingo cards as you want.
By: Sunil Tanna
Most people are familiar with the game of bingo, although, to be fair, many of us think of it only as a kids game or a game played by seniors at social events. While I wouldn’t want to deny that the game is played in these situations, bingo can be a lot of fun for people of all ages, and has also found use in classrooms as an educational tool.
The basic idea of bingo is that each player is given a bingo card. The card contains squares, within in each of which, is a randomly selected number. A bingo caller reads out numbers in a random order, and players mark off the corresponding squares on their cards. The objective of the game is to be the first player to achieve a winning combination of marked off squares – depending on the particular variant of bingo being played, this may for example be one or more straight lines going all the way across the bingo card.
One of the reasons why bingo can be adapted to different situations is that you don’t have to play using cards with numbers. Instead of numbers, bingo cards could be printed with words, phrases or even musical symbols. Thus the game can be adapted to different holiday themes such as Christmas, July 4th, New Year, or Halloween, to social events such as baby showers or wedding showers, to the classroom, by using bingo cards containing items chosen by the teacher, whether it be math problems (that the student must solve in order to mark them off), music symbols (that students must recognize), or even foreign language words (that students must translate).
To play a variant of bingo you will of course need to have special bingo cards with the items of your choice. You can create these by hand if you want to, but if you need a lot of bingo cards, it can be a lot of work. An easy solution is to use your computer – with the help of appropriate bingo card creator software, you just need to enter the list of words, phrases or items that you want, and the computer can generate the bingo cards for you with just a few mouse clicks.
By: Sunil Tanna
