Nov 14
When teaching geography, it’s not at all unusual to want your students to learn lists of items (such as countries, states of the United States, cities, capitals, rivers, or mountains), and perhaps also some associated details of each item in such lists. Of course, rote learning can be very boring for students, and tends to be easily forgotten – so what is needed is a fun but educational way for students to learn the information while remaining motivated. It is for this reason that many geography teachers are always on the lookout for new classroom games and activities to perform with their students.
One such activity that is worth considering (especially since it is flexible enough to be adapted to many different classroom situations) is bingo. The basic idea is quite simple – each student is given a bingo card containing a different combination of the list of items that need to be learned, the teacher acts as the caller, and then you play bingo – however there are many possible variations on the basic idea:
- You could, for example, instead of calling out the items on the cards directly, give the students clues which they have to match up to the items on their cards. For example, instead of calling “Paris”, you might say “The capital of France”.
- You can also use the game as a tool to encourage participation and discussion in the class. During the game, you could ask students to explain each item that you call out before you move on to the next item.
- Another idea is to play normally, but with the added requirement that when a student claims “Bingo!”, he only actually wins if he can describe each item that he ticked off his card. If students are aware of this requirement in advance, and really want to win the game, this can be a great extra incentive to study harder.
Of course, all this sounds like a great idea, but it’s only a workable idea if you can actually get suitable printed supplies to play the game. In the past, this would have required sending off for expensive specialist materials, but today there are much easier solution: print everything from your computer. You can get ready-made free printables for geography bingo off the Internet, and there is even affordable software is available that makes it simple to print customized bingo cards (containing whatever items you want).
By: Sunil Tanna
Tagged with: Bingo • Bingo Card • Bingo Cards • Capital Of France • Capitals • Classroom Games And Activities • Classroom Situations • Game • Geography Teachers • Lookout • Mountains • New Games • Paris • Participation • Play Bingo • Rivers • Rote Learning • States Of The United States • Teaching Geography • Variations
Sep 24
Today’s teachers are no longer satisfied with rote learning and boring classroom activities. As a result, fun, engaging and challenging educational activities are very much in demand, and one such activity that has become extremely popular in recent years is bingo. This is because bingo is ideally suited to educational environments – apart from being enjoyable, it’s very easy to play, it’s extremely flexible and adaptable, and it doesn’t require lots of expensive materials or specialist resources.
The traditional version of bingo is played using bingo cards containing a 5 X 5 array of numbers. Each players goal is to try to get a line (horizontal, vertical or diagonal) of items marked off their card – they mark off items as they are called out by the bingo caller. Educational versions of bingo use broadly the same rules (although teachers may of course vary the rules if they wish), but the bingo cards are instead printed with items specific to the particular subject or lesson – for example, place names in a geography class, historical figures in a history class, authors or book titles in an English literature class, and so on.
While it is true that bingo is can be used in many different subjects, one subject where it has proven especially popular with teachers is math. Usually math teachers will use bingo cards containing math problems, and ask the students to write in answers to these questions (as the questions are called out), but that isn’t the only way to play. You could use bingo cards containing numbers which serve as the solutions to various math questions – when the teacher calls out a math question, students must mark off the square containing the solution. Another idea when teaching fractions and/or decimals is to have cards containing the same number written in different ways – when a teach calls out “a half”, students may tick off a square containing 0.5, 2/4, 3/6, 4/8 or any other other representation of a half, regardless of format or base.
If you’re a teacher and want to use bingo in your classes, then obviously you’ll need to get the appropriate bingo cards. There are specialist publisher who offer preprinted materials, but these are sometimes expensive and also limit your choice of items and themes to those chosen by the publisher. It would be a lot more flexible if you could print the cards yourself – and installing some bingo card maker software on your PC will allow you to do exactly that.
By: Sunil Tanna
Tagged with: Bingo Caller • Bingo Cards • Book Titles • Class Authors • Classroom Activities • Educational Activities • Educational Environments • Educational Versions • English Literature Class • History Class • Math Problems • Math Question • Math Questions • Math Teachers • Place Names • Question Students • Rote Learning • Specialist Resources • Teaching Decimals • Teaching Fractions
