This past week I had my niece Gaby use The Trip Clip website to create sets of 30 Alphabet BINGO boards and calling cards. If you already own the Bingo activity you can make these yourself with no additional purchase (instructions below). If you don’t own the Bingo activity you can purchase the sets of 30 bingo boards on Teachers Pay Teachers.
Gaby made three collections of pre-made Alphabet Bingo boards you can purchase:
Each of these collections contains 30 unique bingo boards (each is half a sheet of paper) and the calling cards to match the boards.
In the Classroom
Teachers can use the 30 unique boards in the classroom to help with letter recognition and first letter sounds. I recommend laminating them so they can be used over and over with dry erase markers. Here are ideas for how to use these Alphabet Bingo boards in the classroom:
- Start with the Capital letters boards and play a straightforward game of BINGO, asking the kids to get 5 in a row. Have them trade boards in between games.
- When they’re ready, use the lower case letters to practice those too
- Next try the boards that mix upper and lower case letters
- For kids who already know all of their letters, instead of calling out the letter name, say a word that starts with that letter and have them identify the first letter sound and then find it on their BINGO board
- For even older kids, call out the letter, but ask them to write a word that starts with that letter in the box. In order to win they need 5 words that correctly start with the letter shown.
Outside the Classroom
Outside of the classroom Alphabet BINGO offers some great entertainment with built-in learning. It’s great at restaurants, at the grocery store, and especially running errands and on road trips. You’ve probably played the alphabet game before where you look for the letters of the alphabet from A-Z on road signs. Alphabet BINGO is similar, but with the printed boards you can mix it up a little to make it more interesting.
I wrote a whole blog post about ways to use Alphabet Bingo for fun and learning outside the classroom. Check it out here! There are ideas for young kids as well as teenagers in there.
On a Mobile Device
The Trip Clip’s bingo activity can be used interactively on mobile devices, which makes it a great option when running errands and on road trips. You can put the letters in alphabetical order and have them find the letters on road signs the way the traditional alphabet game is played. Or you can try any of these other unique ideas!
- Play at the grocery store, or at a restaurant, and have your kids find each letter on a sign or on the menu. It’s great for letter recognition.
- On a road trip, find each letter on a sign in the order the letters appear on the bingo board. It’s like the traditional alphabet game you play using signs, but it mixes it up a little. With 2 phones, two kids can play against each other with their own bingo board so they’ll have to find the letters in a different order from the other player(s).
- To make it a little harder, ask your kids to find only words that begin with each of the letters.
What’s great about the mobile bingo game is that you can play it at any time. If your kids are driving you nuts fighting or whining in the back of the car, hand them your phone with alphabet bingo on it and it will help!
How to Make These Yourself
You can make your own alphabet bingo boards using the Trip Clip by following these steps:
- Log in to your account on The Trip Clip
- Go to the bingo activity
- Click Alphabet on the radio buttons on the left
- Click the 3 lines menu on the right above the bingo board and select ‘Add new bingo’
- If you want a mix of upper and lower case letters, simply print the list, or use it on a mobile device. If you want a new board, click remove all and then refresh the page to generate a new board.
- If you want only capital letters, or only lower case letters, click Remove All, then check Enter text only items.
- In the edit box, type all 26 letters, one letter on each line.
- Click Shuffle then add, then print or use your bingo board on a mobile device.
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