Bingo is a game of chance that people play by buying cards with numbers on them and obtaining winning combinations by scratching out numbers that are called out by a caller. The popularity of this game has prompted the usage of the basic idea of Bingo in a lot of fields not just gambling, but also education etc.
Many teachers have come up with the idea of making Bingo cards not with numbers on them, but words or pictures for example, and playing the game with their students, where, instead of calling out numbers, they give clues to the words or ask the student to match the picture with its name etc, thus making the game educational. These methods are extremely useful since they incorporate learning into a fun filled event which ensures that the students grasp the concepts much better when compared to teaching them in a normal set up in a class room. Thus in order to carry this out, the teachers must make the special bingo cards.
Since it can prove to be extremely difficult to manually make a number of cards, one can resort to other methods to make bingo cards. And for this reason, there are a number of bingo card making software that are available free online on a variety of web sites. These can be downloaded and are easy to use as they are user friendly. All that a teacher has to do is to decide the size of the card that they want to use, whether it is a 5×5 or a 9×3 matrix. Once this is decided, they must decide on at least a hundred words or numbers etc. The software will automatically generate a number of cards, each with a different set of random words or numbers that are printed on the cards.
Now the teacher can play it in the class. He or She can distribute the cards around, and all that the teacher has to do is to call out the definition of the word, or maybe a simple math problem whose solution is one of the numbers that can be on the cards. It is up to the student to identify the correct word, or to correctly solve the problem and check if the number or word is there in his or her card. If it is present then they can mark that particular number or word on the card. After giving a sufficient amount of time for the students to call out ‘Bingo!’ the teacher can proceed to solve the problem or give the correct word and those who failed to obtain the answer can then mark it on the sheet.
When a student calls out Bingo, the teacher can check if it is valid, and if it is, they win a prize or maximum grade and if not, then they will be disqualified. It must be remembered that this technique of teaching can be used for any subject, be it math, English or even History. But to succeed, one must know how to customize their bingo cards.
Thus the customization of Bingo cards is a very useful process that can have a number of advantages and can also help in teaching children valuable things, while they have fun at the same time.
Tags: bingo cards
