If you mention the game of “bingo” to somebody, chances are that will be familiar with the game, and how it is played. It is a very simple game, one that can be learned in minutes, but which nevertheless provides enjoyment to many people. What you may not have realized however is, with a few simple modifications, bingo can be adapted for classroom use, and used by teachers as an educational tool.
Bingo can be an enjoyable activity for many students, and of course this can help them engage with the subject, but it is also ideal for classroom use since it does not require expensive or specialist materials, and the game is flexible enough to be adapted for teaching almost any subject.
The main way that the game is adapted to different subjects, is by using bingo cards printed with items chosen by the teacher, instead of standard numbered bingo cards. The items on the cards can be anything that the teacher feels appropriate for the subject in question, be they words, phrases, or perhaps math problems or musical symbols. Additionally, in some cases, the game rules may also be modified somewhat.
Examples of educational variants of bingo include
* Reading Bingo – This game is indented for younger students learning to read. They must simply find words on their cards when they are read out. Very often the words are chosen from the Dolch sight word list, or similar introductory word lists
* Math bingo – The bingo cards are printed with math problems that the students must correctly solve in order to check off the corresponding square. The problems could be equations, reducing a fraction, etc.
* Foreign language bingo – These version of the game could be played in a language learning class, be that French, Spanish, German, Italian or any other language. The bingo cards are printed with words in that language, and the students must find the correct matching word when the teacher calls out the English equivalent.
By: Sunil Tanna
Most of us tend to think of bingo as a game played as a leisure activity, mostly by older people. However, it is also the case that variations on the standard game of bingo are now being used by many teachers and educators. Bingo has in fact been applied to teaching a wide variety of different subjects including reading, English, foreign languages such as French, Spanish, German and Italian, and math, science, history and geography.
Educational variants of bingo are generally played with the teacher taking the part of bingo caller. The students are each given a bingo card or worksheet, containing a selection of items from a list created in advance of class by the teacher. The particular items that appear on the bingo worksheets are of course specific to the particular subject being taught.
The class then plays bingo. In some subjects, for example if teacher younger kids the alphabet or to recognize Dolch sight words, the teacher may simply call out items that are printed on the bingo worksheets, and students need to find matches on their cards. In other cases, the teacher may call out a clue or question (such as a Spanish word, or a math problem) and students have to find to solve the problem and find the match (such as the English translation of the Spanish word, or the answer to the math problem).
Of course the key requirement to play any of these versions of bingo in a classroom is a set of suitable bingo worksheets. Obviously it would not be a good use of the teacher’s time to spend a long time manually writing out bingo worksheets. Likewise, while it may be possible to buy preprinted educational bingo worksheets, this can get expensive quite quickly if many different worksheets are needed, and in any case, preprinted worksheets may not contain the exact items that the teacher wants for his or her class. The best answer is to use a computer and some bingo worksheet generator software – this way the teacher can quickly and easily prepare custom bingo worksheets whenever they are needed.
By: Sunil Tanna
