Most teachers are always looking for challenging and engaging things for their students to do in class. Activities that encourage participation in class discussions, are always especially welcome. Ideally classroom activities will be fun too – which is one reason why games are popular – although of course we must never forget that the purpose behind all these activities is to encourage and assist learning.
However being interesting and educational is not enough by itself. An activity must also suitable to be adapted for different lesson plans, different ages of students, and, of course, different school subjects. Furthermore, in today’s educational environment cost considerations must necessarily play a part: teachers are both unable and unwilling to spend money on expensive materials that can only be used rarely, or even just once.
One idea that is worth considering is bingo. The basic idea is to play the game using specially prepared bingo cards containing items related to the subject. For example, in a chemistry class you might use the names of elements, compounds or chemical processes. In a math class, you might use mathematical problems. In a geography class, you might use the names of countries, states, provinces, cities, rivers or mountains. And in a foreign language class, you could play bingo using words of French, German or Spanish vocabulary that students are learning.
The beauty of bingo is that you can adapt the game to almost any subject or age range of students. Additionally, you can play the game in a variety of different ways: you could play a “normal” game with the teacher as caller, you could have the teacher call out “clues” instead of the items on the cards, you could ask students to explain the items as they check them off from their bingo cards, or you could even have class discussions during the game after each item is called.
Bingo is also compatible with the cost restrictions that today’s teachers must work under: you can simply print the bingo cards from your computer rather than sending off for expensive supplies. There are two main ways to do that: either you can download ready-made free educational bingo printables from the Internet (available on a variety of subjects), or you can purchase inexpensive bingo card printing software (which will allow you to print bingo cards on any topic, whenever you want). Furthermore, if you find yourself playing bingo on a regular basis, you can even save on your printing costs – simply print once on to good quality paper or card, use the school’s laminator on these, and when you play in class, students can put counters over the squares on the bingo cards rather than writing on them.
By: Sunil Tanna
While most of tend to think of bingo as a pastime enjoyed purely for leisurely purposes, it is also true that many K-12 teachers have adapted bingo for use in their classrooms. Bingo is today being used to help teach a diverse range of school subjects including reading, English, foreign languages and math.
Education versions of bingo are generally played according to roughly the same rules as the standard game – with the teacher acting as bingo caller, and the students as the players – but they often played with specially modified bingo cards containing items chosen by the teacher rather than the usual numbers. Additionally, in some cases, the teacher may tweak the rules somewhat.
Here are a few ideas for using bingo in lessons:
* Sight word bingo – The bingo cards are printed with words chosen by the teacher (often words from the Dolch sight word list). The teacher reads out a word, and students must find the matching square on their cards.
* Phonemic awareness bingo – The bingo cards are printed with letters. The teacher calls out a word, and students must find the letter which begins that word.
* Vocabulary bingo – The teacher gives a definition for a word, and students must find the square on their card with the matching word
* Parts of speech bingo – The teacher gives a clue for a part of speech (”a verb beginning with T”, etc.) and students must find the square with a matching word.
* Foreign language bingo – The bingo cards are printed with words in the language being taught (French, German, Spanish, etc.), the teacher reads out a word in English, and students must find the matching word. You can also reverse this, so the teacher speaks in a foreign language, and the students must find the matching English word, or you could simply play the entire game in the foreign language.
* Math bingo – The bingo cards are printed with numbers, and the teacher gives a math problem such as simple addition, subtraction, multiplication or division problem. Students must find the square containing the answer to the problem.
* Fraction and Decimals bingo – The bingo cards are printed with fractions and/or decimal numbers. The teacher reads out a number and the students must find the matching square. This doesn’t have to be easy – the student could be required to convert the number between representations such as find the square containing “0.75″ if the teacher says “six eighths”, etc. Obviously teachers can vary the level of difficulty so it is appropriate for their class.
* Rounding bingo – The bingo cards are printed with numbers, and the students must find the matching square when the teacher says something like “two point six rounded to the nearest whole number”, or “twelve rounded to the nearest multiple of ten”.
* History bingo – The bingo cards can be printed with names of historical figures (for example, “Theodore Roosevelt”), events (for example, the “Battle of Gettysburg”), or dates (for example, “December 7th 1941″), and students must find the matching square when given a clue by the teacher.
* Geography bingo – Basically the same idea as history bingo, but using city, state, country or other place names. The teacher can give clues such as “it’s a state on the West coast of the United States and it’s capital is Sacramento”.
* Science bingo – Just like history and geography, bingo can also be used to help students learn key facts about biological, chemistry or physics.
By: Sunil Tanna
I think it would be fair to say that most adults know how to play the game of bingo. This is no doubt because of the widespread popularity of the game, and the fact that the game is very easy to learn. What you may not know, is that bingo, and variations of the game of bingo are proving to be increasingly popular in educational and learning situations.
Nobody would deny that one of the challenges faced by teachers is how to get their students to engage with the subject being taught. Enjoyable classroom activities such as bingo, can be of help with this problem. Of course, an enjoyable activity serves little purpose unless it helps teach the subject – but the good news is that bingo can be adapted to teaching a variety of different school subjects.
The key step in adapting bingo to classroom use, is the introduction of custom bingo cards. As you know, in the standard game of bingo, the bingo cards are simply printed with a set of numbers. In classroom versions of the game, the cards are instead printed with words, phrase, math problems or even musical symbols (depending on the subject being taught), of the teacher’s choice. Additionally, if the teacher chooses to, he or she may also modify the rules of the game slightly. Some examples of educational bingo applications might include:
* Sight word bingo – Used in introductory reading classes: The bingo cards are printed with words that the students simply have to find (often words from the Dolch Sight Word list, or simply lists).
* Vocabulary bingo – Used in language classes: The bingo cards are printed with French, German, Italian or Spanish words, and the students must find the matching word when the teacher calls out an English word.
* Math bingo – The bingo cards are printed with math problems that the students must not only find, but also solve.
By: Sunil Tanna
