Most people are familiar with the game of bingo. The idea of the game is simple: each player is given a bingo worksheet (or “bingo card” or “bingo board”) containing a grid of squares (each square usually contains a different number), and the goal is to cross out numbers as they are called out by the bingo caller, hopefully being the first to achieve a winning pattern or line (what is considered a winning pattern may vary depending on the rules being used).
One thing that you may not know however is that there are many variations on the basic game of bingo, and these have been applied for a variety of educational purposes. Bingo is in fact an excellent tool that can be used to help teaching reading, vocabulary, math, science and many other K-12 subjects, and also is of use in teaching English as Second Language (”ESL”).
The common theme in most educational variants of bingo is a requirement for custom bingo worksheets. This is because the bingo worksheets are printed with items chosen by the teacher and specific to the particular subject in question. For example, in a game of math bingo, the worksheets might be printed with numbers that are the answers to math problems called out by the teacher, in a game of foreign language bingo, the bingo worksheets might be printed out with French or Spanish words (the teacher makes the bingo calls in English), and so on. You might assume that creating custom bingo cards for every student in a class is a lot of time-consuming preparation work for teachers, but you would be wrong – it’s actually very easy to print custom bingo cards with the help from a computer and some bingo worksheets generator software.
By: Sunil Tanna
Most people know how to play the game of bingo, after all it’s a game that many of us either played as kids or learned to enjoy in later life. The idea of the game is quite simple: every player is given a bingo card (sometimes known as a “bingo board” or “bingo sheet”), each of the squares contains an item (traditionally a number), and players tick off squares when the corresponding items are called out by the bingo caller. The objective of the game is to be the first player to get a continuous line of items diagonally, vertically or horizontally across the card, and then claim the win by calling out “Bingo!”.
As already mentioned, in traditional versions of bingo, the items in the squares of the bingo card are numbers. Today however many variations of the standard game have also become popular, and in these variants, words, phrases, dates, times or even math problems can be used for hte items on the cards.
- Holiday versions of bingo are increasingly popular. Bingo is a great activity for family and community events since people of all ages can play together. In holiday variants of the game, words or phrases relating to the particular holiday are used, so words like “Advent” or “Santa Claus” in a Christmas game, or “Revolution” or “George Washington” in an Independence Day game.
- Bingo games with words and phrases are popular in K-12, English as Second Language (ESL) and foreign language teaching. They’re a fun way for students to practice word recognition, reading and spelling.
- Bingo cards can also be printed with math problems. They’re good way to practice multiplication tables (”times tables”) as well as arithmetic. Students are required to write in the correct answers to problems as they are called out, rather than simply ticking items off their cards.
In order to play most of these variants of the game, you will of course need bingo cards containing items relating to your chosen theme. Obtaining preprinted cards can be difficult – even if you can find somewhere to buy them, they can be expensive and may not contain the exact items that you want. Preparing bingo cards by hand is possible, but very time consuming! The best answer is to get your computer to do the work – with the right bingo card maker software you can print custom bingo cards with consummate ease.
By: Sunil Tanna
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
