Ice breaker bingo cards are bingo cards printed with people’s names, or with activities or attributes that describe people (e.g. “owns a cat”, “likes eating pizza”, etc.). These cards are used in the game of ice breaker bingo, which is fun method of facilitating introductions between members of a school or college class, or among attendees of a seminar or workshop.
The way that these cards are used are as follows:
1. Before the class, seminar, or event, the teacher or organizer prepares the set of bingo cards. One card needs to be prepared for each attendee, and of course each card should be different from all of the others. It is possible to prepare these cards manually, simply using pen and paper, but of course this can be very time consuming – so it may be easier to make the cards using a computer, printer, and bingo card maker software.
2. Bingo cards with names tend to be most suitable for younger students and introductory English as a Second Language (ESL) classes. Cards with activities are require more confidence and more sophisticated language skills, so are generally more suitable for older students, confident English speakers, etc.
3. In both variants of ice breaker bingo, each player aims to achieve a straight line of 5 items (horizontally, vertically or diagonally) across their bingo card, and the first player to achieve such a line is the winner.
- If playing with names, the teacher (or organizers) goes round the group in random order, asking each person to stand up, talk briefly about themselves, and finishing by introducing themselves by name (e.g. “I love animals of all types. I have a pet named Rover, and I also have two cats named Moggy and Thomas. I am pleased to meet you all, my name is Boris.”). As people introduce themselves, the players cross their names off their card, and the first player to get a line can call “bingo!” – but their bingo doesn’t count unless they can identify each of the people in their winning line.
- If playing with activities or descriptions, the players spend some time circulating among themselves and introducing themselves to each other. When they first a person matching one of the items on the card, they write that person’s name in the square – but each person’s name can only appear once per card.
By: Sunil Tanna
Most people are familiar with the game of bingo. We tend to think of it as a leisurely game mostly played by seniors, and while this is often the case, it is also the case that variations of the standard game are also used in teaching – including in K-12 education and in English as a Foreign/Second Language (usually abbreviated to “EFL” or “ESL”) classes. Additionally, games of bingo can also be a fun activity for social and family events such as wedding showers, baby showers, and family gatherings at holidays such as July 4th, Thanksgiving and Christmas.
As you probably know, standard games of bingo are played using bingo worksheets (also known as “bingo cards”) containing a selection of numbers – the bingo players’ goal is to find matching squares as numbers are called out by the bingo caller. In educational and holiday versions of bingo however, the game play is varied somewhat – the squares can contain letters, words or phrases appropriate to the particular game – for example, in a game of Christmas bingo, the squares might contain words such as “Santa Claus”, “Christmas Tree”, and “Magi”. Likewise, in an educational game, the contents of the bingo worksheets will be based on the particular subject or lesson being taught – in a game of math bingo, the squares may contain numbers which are answers to math problems called out by the teacher, in a game of reading bingo, the squares might contain words chosen from the Dolch sight word list, and so on.
If you want to play one of these variants of bingo, the main requirement is of course a suitable set of bingo worksheets containing the appropriate items for your chosen theme. Preparing a different bingo worksheet for each player might sound like a lot of work, but actually it is not so hard – a computer and some bingo worksheet maker software can make the job quick and easy.
By: Sunil Tanna
