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
Most adults are familiar with the game of bingo. Most of us have either played it ourselves, or at least seen it played. For those few people who have not, the rules are simple and easily learned – you are given a bingo card which is printed with a grid of numbers, and cross off squares as the numbers are called out by the bingo caller – the goal is to be the first person to achieve a winning pattern of crossed out squares (the exact definition of the a winning pattern varies depending on the variant of the game being played).
One thing that you may not have considered however is because bingo is so simple, it can be played by children, and with just a few modifications can easily be adapted into a powerful but flexible learning aid. Many teachers have noticed this (not to mention the fact that bingo does not require expensive materials or specialist resources), and thus have introduced variants of the game into their classrooms. Today bingo is being used to teach a variety of K-12 school subjects including English (vocabulary, reading, etc.), math, foreign languages, and even science and history.
In most classroom variants of bingo, the game is played using bingo cards printed with items chosen by teacher. Additionally, game play may be modified somewhat. For example, in a vocabulary version of bingo, the bingo cards contain words that the teacher wants students to learn, the teacher calls out definitions of words rather than the words themselves, and the students must match the definitions to the words. Similar ideas can be used for reading practise, math problems, and foreign languages (calling out words in one language and require students to match printed words in another).
The main requirement for all these educational variants of bingo is the ability for the teacher to give each student a bingo card with items appropriate for the particular lesson. Fortunately this is quite easy – a PC and some bingo cards generator software can print a set of bingo cards containing whatever types of items the teacher wants, in just a few minutes.
By: Sunil Tanna
Bingo is an increasingly popular classroom activity with many teachers. This is because these teachers realize that as well as being a lot of fun for their students, the game is perfectly suited to educational use, including in the K-12 environment. This is because bingo is very easy to learn and play, highly flexible and adaptable to different topics and subjects, and importantly given the financial constraints that many teachers work under, not requiring of specialist expensive resources or materials.
Although bingo can be used in teaching many different subjects and topics, including math and arithmetic, telling the time, or even geography, history or science, one area in which the game is especially popular, is teaching reading. When teaching reading the key aspect of the game is that each student is given a bingo card printed with words (or perhaps phrases), and although (as in standard bingo), the objective remains to be the first player to get a line of five items horizontally, vertically or diagonally, game play can be adapted from simply calling out words (or writing them on the blackboard if the teacher prefers).
1. Sight Words – The teacher simply calls out words, and students must find the corresponding word on their cards. This variant is most popular with so-called “Sight Words” – words that can not be sounded out, but that students must master recognizing in order to achieve reading fluency.
2. Blending Bingo – The teacher says a word very slowly such as “sss-ppp-ooo-ttt” or “mmm-aaa-t” and the students must find the word on the card. The purpose being to help students practice “blending” letters to make words.
3. Partial Word Bingo – The teacher says something like “Find the word with ‘mile’ in it” and the student has to find “Smile”. You can also use beginnings of words (e.g. find the word beginning with “r”), word endings, or sounds in the middle of words.
4. Rhyming Bingo – The teacher says something like “Find the word that rhymes with ‘plot’” and the student has to find “slot”.
5. Silent E Bingo – Ahead of time the teacher prepares bingo cards using pairs of words with and without a silent E, for example “cap” and “cape”, or “hat” and “hate”. You then play normal bingo and students have to learn to recognize the differences between these similar words. A variation is to use only words without the final E, and when playing make bingo calls of the following form “When you add an E, the word would be ‘pine’”, in response to which clue the students needs to find the square containing “pin”.
By: Sunil Tanna
