BINGO!

Call me old school, but I love a good game of BINGO in the classroom!  BINGO is such a great game that lends itself to covering a variety of skills IN ITSELF!  The best part of all is that it's minimal prep!   If you don't have a regular BINGO set, run and get one asap!  I like the old timey ones with the little cage and balls.  For markers, I use these double sided chips from Lakeshore Learning.  I also enjoy the transparent chips so the kids can see what they've covered.   I keep my chips in small containers so they can quickly be distributed prior to playing.  During the holiday times, we play with themed-candy!

Regular BINGO is fantastic for number recognition!  It's always fun to put some twists on it so here are some ideas:

• Show base-10 blocks {I have large magnetic ones from Learning Resources} on the board and have students find the corresponding number on their BINGO boards.  If you do not have the base-10 blocks, you can always say the blocks aloud: "The number is 6 tens and 5 ones."  

• Choose a number and instead of calling out the actual number, make students work for it!!  Example:  You pull a 65.  Say, "The number is one more than 64" or "The number is one less than 66."  

We play sight word BINGO in my classroom a lot!  It's a great review of the words students most frequently see in books.  The kids love it because they create their own luck!  Each quarter we make a new board, as the boards are broken down by the Fry's First 100 words.  At the end of the year, we'll play the review board set, which is a mixture of the 100 words.  Click the cover to check this out.  

We'll be playing "Silent e BINGO" next week as a review!  That can be found in my Magic E pack, shown below.

We also enjoy playing addition or subtraction BINGO.   Last year, I decided to put a twist on my addition and subtraction BINGO.  I used to just call out a fact and then ask the kids to yell out the answer on command.   Then, I would tell them what letter to look under.  I realized that not everyone was solving the fact; some were just relying on the "yellers."  So now what I do is this:  I call out the fact first...but then...wait for it...I draw a name stick and that person and that person only  has to tell me the answer.  This way, everyone is solving the fact on their own because the element of surprise is involved.  I'm so sneaky!  

My kids love BINGO because it's the only time I bust out my treasure chest!   What 6-7 year old doesn't love a good, cheap, plastic prize?

You can find all sorts of BINGO games out there!  I buy a lot of them from Lakeshore Learning.  I have found that their things are of good quality and hold up.  *I always laminate the boards, even though they are cardboard.  We all know how expensive these types of things are!  Do you play BINGO in your classroom? I'd love to hear your ideas!  

xo

Megan