All Bingo Club

Meeting People

Part of what makes bingo lots of fun is the fact that you get to meet all sorts of interesting people and share all kinds of information, insight and news. Of particular note is a collection of "bingo recipes" which I have accumulated over the years during my bingo playing sessions. These serve as a memento for particularly successful games as well as a useful reference when in need of a recipe. I am mentioning them here because they also serve to demonstrate the wide range of additional issues that accompany the bingo game.

Inclusion Criteria

My bingo recipes collection has strict inclusion criteria. These include that the recipe be actually given during a bingo session and that the recipe be relevant and tasty. Usually, these are quick and clever recipes for making a dish that might otherwise take significantly more time and effort. Whether this is so because of the nature of bingo players or because of my own personal preferences is something I have never fully contemplated. Some of the most notable of these recipes are actually noted on the backs of bingo cards (with or without holes punched into them). On one occasion I actually had to go and convince the bingo establishment that my winning card was needed by me for the information printed on its back. I think that this clearly demonstrates that a bingo game is also a social occasion and far more than simply a gambling event that attracts a large crowd. In my opinion this is something particular to bingo which serves to set it as a social game which is far different than other contemporary gambling games. Perhaps, in some later blog entry I shall take the time to describe some of these recipes to you as part of the demonstration of the special qualities of bingo. Readers are of course welcome to submit their own "bingo recipes" which I may or may not include in my established collection.

A Tricky Question

Last Monday, a good friend of mine asked me for a suggestion of a bingo game that he could buy his cousin's kids. Of course, the first thing I told him (admittedly, somewhat cynically!) is that I don't advocate children playing gambling games of any sort. I then referred him to some excellent children's bingo games as well as a few websites that describe such games. Bingo is a great game for children and if it is used right, it can be a great educational tool as well. If you want to read about my favorite educational bingo games, they appear in the next paragraph.

Favorite Bingo Games 

When it comes to educational bingo games, my personal favorite is a very educational series dedicated to promoting math skills. For those who are not familiar with the series, it is called the "Conceptual Bingo" (a product of Conceptual Math Media) series. I am familiar with three different sets in this series. One is played with integers, one with decimals  and one is played with fractions. This is a series of well loved sets that my children have played with for hours on end. There is no way to tell how useful these games were for teaching these basic math concepts but the game was certainly fun. I even joined in every once in a while and I can't really complain. Another game which I have seen and is highly recommended although I have never tried it for myself  is known as "Bingo Bears Game" and is a product of  "Learning Resources". This is a multi-use educational bingo set that  covers a wide variety of subjects.  The idea here is that parents can  construct their own bingo cards based on the particular subjects that  they are trying to promote at the moment. Either way, these games should be priced at about 20$ and are certainly a worthwhile investment in the future of our children.

Traveling with Kids

Traveling with kids can sometimes be a difficult task. This is particularly true of the easily bored youngsters who must be taken on a rather long drive. A three hour drive can seem like a hectic eternity if proper diversions are not prepared for ahead of time. The next paragraph describes a way that a fun sort of bingo game can keep children occupied without any real effort on the part of the driver. The game described is not my idea and I have seen it appear in a number of commercial versions. Nonetheless, creating appropriate bingo boards yourself should pose no extreme difficulty and this is a fun game you can try.

Bingo Pictures

Rather than numbers, the bingo boards created depict a wide variety of objects that might be seen while driving. Things like traffic signs, police cars, gas stations and restaurants can all appear on these boards. Whenever one of these objects is spotted by one of the players, it is marked off on the bingo board. The winner is the first to score a BINGO on his board. There are disposable versions of this game where you can mark off the items by punching a hole and there are reusable versions that can be purchased as well.

When Creating Your Own

This "travel bingo" is a bingo game that you can easily create on your own. If you do decide to try making such a game, it is highly recommended that you think a bit before deciding what pictures to place on the board. The considerations for precisely what you choose should bring into account how long you want the game to last and on what sort of road  the game will be played.  A crosswalk as a picture on a bingo board might be immediately marked off when driving in a town but might not be spotted at all during the entire trip in the country!

Bingo's Educational Uses

Despite the primary content of my blog, Bingo is not only a game of gambling and socializing. In fact, bingo actually enjoys a great deal of popularity as an educational tool in many schools. Children love games and learning by playing an educational game is probably the finest (and most fun!) way of learning. Bingo is a simple enough game that it can easily serve as just such an educational tool. This tool is suitable for a very wide range of ages and there are many educational systems which make use of bingo in such a way. There are even bingo kits for school teachers to use. In the next paragraph I will describe some examples of such educational techniques.

Bingo Educational Examples

For instance, in many primary schools, the bingo numbers are often replaced with beginning reader words. These bingo cards are then used to teach children how to read these words. The motivation for learning is spurred by the bingo game. Such words are often selected from the lists such as the Dolch word lists which consists of a 220 words that are required in order to achieve fluency in reading in English. In a similar manner, the bingo card could be filled with pictures representing words or even with unsolved math problems. Such bingo cards can be used for teaching math skills, reading skills, and even spelling. Since it is a rather lengthy and exhaustive task to prepare a great deal of bingo cards for entire classrooms there are two methods that are often employed. Either the students are each permitted to construct their own card (this divides the work so that it is not so time consuming) or a computer program is used to generate and print a wide collection of randomly varied cards. Such educational uses are often found in The United States of America where bingo is a popular and well known game.