Classroom Bingo

Most adults are familiar with the game of bingo -K-12, and for teaching older students. The game can
we've came across the game at some points in ourbe adapted to almost any subject including English
lives. It is true that many us of think of it as a gameand Reading, English as a Second Language (ESL),
played in church and community halls in funding raisingForeign Languages (including Spanish, French, German
efforts, or by groups of seniors as a relaxing way ofand Italian), Math, Science, History and more. The
passing the time, but one thing you may not know ismain way that the game is adapted to each of these
that bingo is becoming increasingly popular insituations is by using custom bingo cards printed with
education.items appropriate to the lesson, and by modifying the
Many teachers have come to the conclusion thatgame play mechanics. In a K-12 reading class for
bingo is well suited to classroom use, because it isexample, students might just be required to
easy for students to learn and play, does not requirerecognize sight words, in a math class the students
expensive specialist materials, does not make a bigmight be required to write in the answers to math
mess, and is highly adaptable to teaching differentproblems into the squares rather than simply cross
subjects, different lesson plans, and different ageoff squares, and in a foreign language class the bingo
groups. When organized by enthusiastic teacher,cards could be printed in one language but the calss
bingo can indeed be both fun and educational.made in another (for example, bingo cards printed
As hinted at previously, bingo can be used in awith Spanish vocabulary - and students need to
variety of educational environments, including teachingmatch up these words to bingo calls made in English).