Bingo is an age old tradition in K-12 classrooms. Teachers have been using it for decades to review topics in a variety of subject areas. I turn to Bingo (or as we call it in French, Loto) from time to time to review vocabulary. Until recently, though, there wasn’t an easy way to get Bingo going without having to waste some class time getting set up. You had to pass out cards and chips (and then collect the chips when you were done and inevitably pick several up off the floor), or have students create their own Bingo boards, so sometimes I passed it over for something that didn’t require so much set up time. Enter My Free Bingo Cards (who, by the way, did not pay me to write this post). This site was introduced to me over the summer at NYSAFLT‘s Summer Institute. Conference chair Marissa Coulehan used it during our Zoom social hour as a fun way to get to know each other. I could not believe I hadn’t heard of this before! Of course this would have been great last year for hybrid and virtual instruction, but the fact is that it’s great even for in person instruction and also eliminates the need for sharing materials such as cards and chips. Read on to learn why I love it.
My Free Bingo Cards lets you create your own Bingo cards using any words you want. I love that you can pick your grid size. I like to do 4×4, because that is the traditional French Loto board. Then it automatically generates 30 virtual bingo cards (it’s possible that two students will get the same card unless you actually send each student an individual link, but that doesn’t really bother me). You can pay to get more card variations, but I don’t have classes larger than 30, so I don’t have a need for that.
The site will give you a PDF that you can print out as you call the game, but I project it on the SMART Board and cross items out after I call them. If I am doing vocabulary I will act it out or somehow define it in French. For numbers, I just say them in French. I am not a fan of English to French translation, so if it’s not something I can act out or somehow define easily in French, I will typically not do Bingo for that set of vocabulary.
Students access the game by clicking a link I have posted for them on Canvas, which automatically gives them a random card. As items get called that they have on their board, they simply click them, and a red X appears. They can click again to make the X go away. There is a way to generate a new card if you want to play a brand new game.
My only complaint about My Free Bingo Cards is that you can’t upload images to go in the spaces. That would really open up a lot of options for this game. An alternative to that would be to show students images as you called Bingo instead of saying something and the French words would be on their cards. Update 3/18/22: I discovered a way to add images to a Bingo board! You simply use emojis! If you are on your computer and don’t know how to get emojis, just Google the emoji you want, and copy and paste it. Below, you see a Bingo board I made with various activities. I put a null sign in front of activities that I wanted to be negative ( e.g. “Je ne joue pas au basket”/”I don’t play basketball”).
Do you often play Bingo in your class? What are some ways you use Bingo?
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