Bingo Baker

I am currently en route to Las Vegas for the TPT Conference! I am so excited to meet other sellers that I feel like I know because I follow their blogs or like them on FB, but I don't really know them so I still need to meet them, you know? The beauty of the online world!

Anyhow, I wanted to share something with you that I think will make your life SO much easier!

Do you like to play bingo in your classroom? I LOVE to use it as an engaging way to review a topic and keep everyone on task with the hopes of winning a jolly rancher or something. Problem is--I NEVER have enough time to create bingo cards ahead of time and I like to have the kids make them up themselves by giving them a list of the possible choices and then they get to decide where they go. I feel it gives them ownership. Really, it just saves me time and gives me a few minutes to get attendance done and other housekeeping items at the beginning of class.

Here is the problem: There is always one kid who never knows what to do or has to erase their board a thousand times because they didn't follow directions. In a 50 minute class period, time is precious, and when it comes down to it, I just want them to do some math before they leave the room.

Enter BingoBaker.com!

It is a great way to enter in all of the possible answer choices and randomly generate as many cards as you need. You can either print directly from the site, or you can have kids use their iPads or other devices and play virtually.

I think you can print from the website for free, but if you want an account to keep track of what you create on the site and to play online, you will need to purchase a lifetime membership for under $10. I figure if I use it a few times a year, it will pay for itself in saved headaches!

The Bucket Game

If you haven't already entered in my HUGE giveaway, be sure to click here to do so!

 I can't remember how the formation of this game came to be, but the kids LOVED it. I played it as a review game in both 6th and 7th grade this year. Here is what the set up looked like:

These buckets were found at Michael's for $0.50 and I used my cricut and vinyl to make the numbers!

Yes, that is my living room...this was after I made the buckets and in true fashion, I never took a picture of my kiddos playing -- we were having too much fun! You can use this to review ANY topic...no, not just in math, I mean ANY topic!

So, here is how it works:

1. Make about 30 review questions. You can make more, but I would say 25-30 is the minimum.

2. They should be in varying difficulty. I make 6 levels, 1 being the easiest and 6 being the most difficult.

3. Print your questions on card stock or something sturdy. You can laminate if you choose to! I printed directly on index cards and it worked great. 

4. Split up the cards into the different levels and put them in the buckets. 

5. Split the kids into teams. I had classes of 25 or so and did 5 teams. Do what works for you!

6. Group 1 goes first and send a kid up. They use a bean bag or a koosh ball and toss it into a basket from a predetermined point about 6-8 feet back. Whichever bucket the ball is in, that is the one they choose a question from. That is also the number of points that the question is worth. (As I am writing this post, I am realizing that this is much like Skee-ball, and you could set the buckets up like that for added difficulty!)

7. Anyhow, the student hands you the question and you either read it outloud or put it on the document camera for everyone to see. They solve as quickly as they can...if you use this in math, work must be shown to support reasoning!

8. You can then do this several different ways. You can let the group whose turn it was answer first, and if they don't know the answer you can go to group 2 and so on. You can then play jeopardy style and then let the winner of that round go next or go to the next team. YOUR CHOICE!

My kids were SO engaged the whole 50 minutes that they BEGGED me to let them finish the round when the bell rang. Seriously, y'all, kids are usually knocking down the door to get out of class (well, not mine!)...not this year!

I hope my directions were clear...but really, you can totally make this your own!

If you are looking for questions that you can use easily with this game, take a look at any of my task card sets in my TPT store!

I love games, don't you? If you have a fun game you play that is easily adaptable to any classroom, let me know about it in the comments!