Most of us know how to play the game of bingo. Thus, the way to play bingo is probably may already be familiar, but if not, here is a quick recap:
1. Each player is a bingo worksheet (also known as a “bingo card” or “bingo board”).
2. The bingo worksheet contains a grid of squares. Each square usually contains a different number
3. The bingo caller calls out the items printed on the worksheets in a random order.
4. As items are called out, the players cross items off their worksheets. The winner is the first player to achieve a winning pattern of crossed out items on their worksheet (in different versions of the game, different winning patterns may be used).
Although of course the standard game of bingo is well-known by many people, and played by many as a leisure activity, what is not so widely known is that modified versions of bingo can be of great use in education. In fact, bingo is becoming increasingly common in classrooms, and can be used as a teaching aid in a number of K-12 subjects including reading, vocabulary, math, foreign languages and even science and history, as well as in adult education, in for example English as a Second Language (ESL) classes.
The common element in most educational versions of bingo is the use of modified bingo worksheets. Instead of the standard worksheets that contain numbers, the teacher creates, ahead of class, worksheets that contain items chosen for the lesson. In the math class, the items might still be numbers, but the numbers are the answers to problems called out by the teacher. In a language class, the worksheets might be printed with Spanish or French words, which the students must match to calls made in English by the teacher. Really there are almost endless possible variations, and innovative teachers are inventing new ones all the time.
You might think that this is all very well, but where can the special customized bingo worksheets be obtained. Obviously, it would not be a good use of a busy teacher’s time to spent a lot of time manually preparing a worksheet for each student. Fortunately, there is an answer – a PC and some bingo worksheet creator software can make light work of printing worksheets on any theme that the teacher chooses.
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
