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Educational bingo is increasingly popular as a classroom activity as more and more teachers are realizing that the game can easily be adapted to a variety of different lesson plans. Apart from the simple fact that students of all ages can enjoy the game, there are many other reasons by bingo is growing in popularity, not least the fact that it’s very inexpensive to play (important given the constraints that today’s teachers work under), but also the facts that game play mechanics can be modified to teaching pretty much any subject to any age range of students.

Bingo can play a role in teaching many different subjects, including math (the squares on bingo cards can be printed with math problems for which students must write in the answers rather than simply marking off squares), telling the time, geography, history, science, foreign languages, and yes, reading. In fact, bingo particularly excels in reading classes, and it is here that the game is most commonly encountered in schools.

In reading bingo, the game is played using the same basic game play mechanics as traditional bingo – the player’s (student’s) objective is to find a line of five matching items vertically, horizontally or diagonally as the items are announced by the bingo caller (teacher), however the bingo cards are printed with words instead of the usual numbers. These words can be sight words (words that students must learn to immediately recognize in order to achieve reading fluency), words that students are in the process of practicing this week, or they can be chosen specially in order to practice a variety of phonics games. Some examples of phonics games, include the teacher asking students to find rhymes, find a longer word that contains a shorter word or sound, find a word that the teacher reads out slowly (e.g. “fff-lll-aaa-p”) so that students must practice “blending” letters, and so on.

The popular image of most sciences is one of being about general laws, theories and mathematical formula. Thus, we tend not to think of science subjects as requiring the study of many facts and details. Indeed, just like in other science subjects, students of geology need to become familiar with numerous facts. In geology these range from the names of geological periods and eras, to types and properties of different minerals, and of course the terminology used to describe various geological processes.

Consequently, one of the key challenges that teachers face when educating their students in geology, is finding ways to get these facts across in an interesting and memorable way. The most effective way for students to learn is by participating in educational activities which will genuinely arouse their interest. For example, games with educational themes can be a very effective teaching tool, and as a result, more and more teachers are adopting them. In particular, one such educational game that is gaining widespread popularity is bingo.

Bingo turns out to be ideally suited to educational environments. The beauty of bingo is that almost everyone already knows how to play, and those few who don’t can quickly learn how, as well as the fact that bingo can easily be adapted to teaching virtually any subject, including geology, by using bingo cards printed with words or phrases related to geology, instead of numbers. Furthermore, and quite importantly, given the financial constraints teachers work under nowadays, the game has the advantage that it does not require expensive specialist materials.

To play geology bingo in class, every student is given their own printed bingo card, the teacher acts as the bingo caller, and then you play. Of course, the teacher might decide to adapt the game play so as to better suit their class, perhaps by having a classroom discussion after each item is called out, or by requiring students to describe the items that they have marked off on their bingo cards.

Of course, if you want to play geology bingo in class, you will need to obtain some bingo cards containing items related to the subject. The best way to obtain these bingo cards, is by simply printing them yourself using your computer. This is completely straightforward, either by using ready-to-use bingo printables that are available online, or by using easy-to-use bingo card maker software, which can print whatever kinds of bingo cards that you might want.

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).

The 5th of May, known in Spanish as “Cinco de Mayo” (which literally means “5th of May”) is a holiday celebrated in Mexico, as well as (principally by Mexican people, and people of Mexican descent) in many parts of the United States of America, especially California (where the holiday has been celebrated every year since 1863). It should however be noted that in Mexico, that May 5th is not an obligatory federal holiday, and in fact the holiday is mainly celebrated in the state of Puebla, by the Mexican ex-patriate community in the United States.

Many Americans wrongly believe that Mexico, that May 5th marks Mexican Independence Day – but this is not the case. In fact, the holiday commemorates the victory of Mexican forces led by General Ignacio Zaragoza Segu?n over invading French troops at the battle of Puebla, which took place on May 5th, 1862.

Today, Cinco de Mayo is celebrated in a wide variety of different ways. In Mexico, typical activities include music and dancing, and of course eating many excellent foods. In the United States, these kind of events also take place, but the holiday has also become an opportunity to more generally display Mexican culture and Mexican symbols. Prominent people of Mexican descent often take part in the celebrations, many businesses provide Mexican-themed beverages and food on the holiday, and numerous school districts organize special events and celebrations of Mexican culture.

Many teachers also like to use the occasion to teacher their pupils a little about Mexican culture. One idea that is well-suited to the opportunity is to play Cinco de Mayo bingo. This is just like normal bingo, except that the bingo cards are printed with words or phrases relating to Mexico or Mexican culture, instead of the usual numbers. The teacher acts as bingo caller, the students each get their own bingo card, and then you’re ready to play! The game can be a wonderful opportunity to trigger class discussions about each of the items of the card, as they are called out.

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.

An increasing number of teachers and educators are finding that variations of the game of bingo are highly suitable for classroom use. It is for this reason that is no longer uncommon to see bingo cards used for teaching reading (including practicing phonics and sight words), math, foreign languages, history, geography, science, and English as a Second Language (ESL).

Applying bingo to lessons on each of these subjects, generally requires bingo cards printed with words or phrases (on in the case of math, math problems) rather than the standard bingo cards printed with numbers that are used in the traditional game. While it is possible of course to prepare bingo cards manually using nothing more than a pen and paper, it is potentially very time consuming. Most teachers already have more than enough demands on their time without unnecessary busywork, and so using a computer and bingo card maker software to do the job, is probably the best solution.

Of course, there’s no reason why teachers need be limited to printing bingo cards on a specific subject or lesson plan. The ability to quickly and easily print custom bingo cards, can also be utilized for other purposes – for example, facilitating introductions between students at the start of a new term or school year, using the game of “icebreaker bingo”:

- Each student is given their own bingo card. Depending on the age level and confidence of the students, these bingo cards can either contain the names of members of the class, or general descriptions (e.g. “owns a dog”, “has been skiing”, “plays guitar”, etc.) – use the former for younger or less confident classes, or the latter for older more confident students.

- As usual, the aim of the game is for students to achieve a straight line of five marked off squares on their bingo card. The line may be horizontal, vertical or diagonal.

- If playing using names, the teacher goes round the class tapping students on the shoulder one at a time. That student stands up, tells the class a little bit about themselves, and finishes by giving their name. Players can then mark their name off their card – however a winning line only counts if the player can identify the other students corresponding to each of the names in their winning line.

- If playing using descriptions, the players circulate among themselves. The players can mark off a square, by writing in a name, when they meet a person who meets a description in one of the squares. The key point to note however is that each name may only be used once on each bingo card – and obviously this restriction greatly encourages students to meet and talk to as many of their classmates as possible.

Good teachers are always on the look-out for engaging, interesting and fun educational activities to use in their classes. One such activity that is growing in popularity, is bingo. The reasons for this, are that bingo is very easy to learn and play, adaptable to almost any type of lesson, subject or student age group, and is not requiring of expensive specialist materials. In short, it’s an ideal game for use in schools, colleges and other educational situations.

When bingo is played as an educational game, one of the main differences from traditional bingo is that a different style of bingo cards are used. In traditional bingo, bingo cards containing a 5 X 5 grid of numbers are used. However, in educational versions of bingo, each item on the grid is an item specific to the subject being taught – for example the name of a country, city, mountain or river in a geography class, or the names of different plants or animals in a biology class, and so on. Bingo is suitable for use in a range of subjects across the entire curriculum, but is a particular favorite among math teachers. The most common way to play the game is to use bingo cards containing math questions – students must write in the answers to questions that come up, rather than simply tick off squares, but there are other variations too. Another idea is to use bingo cards containing numbers, and in this case, the teacher calls out math problems (or writes them on the blackboard), and the students must mark off the number which is the solution to the problem.

There’s no limit on the kinds of math classes which bingo can be used for. It’s probably fair to say that it’s most popular as a tool for encouraging practice of basic arithmetic, especially multiplication and multiplication tables. That’s not bingo’s only use though! Another popular activity is bingo using fractions or decimals – in this version students may be required to convert between different representations of the same number (e.g. marking off any of 1/2, 2/4, 3/6, 4/8, or 0.5, if the teacher calls “a half”).

To play fraction bingo, or in fact any other educational version of bingo, you will of course need the appropriate special bingo cards. Once upon a time, it wasn’t possible to get cards customized to your exact requirements, and the closest thing was preprinted cards from a specialist publisher (which were also often quite expensive). Today however you can simply print bingo cards using your computer – download some bingo card creator software, and it’s a simple job to printed as many cards as you want, whenever you want.