Total Control Bingo

This maths game is designed to assist children in developing confidence with number calculations. It consists of a set of 15 bingo cards for the children, and question sheets for the adult. The children work in pairs to mark off, or cover up, numbers on their cards which answer specific maths problems called out. 

So far so simple. This is just maths bingo. However there's a twist... the questions are organised so that you can easily control which bingo card wins!

How does this work? The maths questions are listed on 15 separate sheets, each one is labelled with a letter of the alphabet: "A" to "O". The bingo cards carry matching labels.

The question sheets carry 16 maths problems, 12 of which appear on one single bingo card - making that the winner!

For example, here's card "E" and the related question sheet - seven questions have been called.

Four of the problems on each question sheet are marked with an asterisk (like the second question in the example above).

This indicates that that question does not have a corresponding answer on the 'winning' card... so, if time is short you can omit this question and there will still be a winner.

This makes the question-calling quite flexible, you can call all 16 questions, or ignore those with an asterisk and only call 12.

The question sheets feature a wide variety of maths functions and vocabulary, which may or may not be appropriate for your children. However, each sheet clearly indicates the answer too, so you can easily rephrase, or completely alter the questions.

Okay, so you may be thinking, this sounds interesting... but why would anyone want to control which card wins?

The main reason for this is that there are times when it is useful to improve on luck! If you draw random questions out of a hat... anyone can win. There's nothing wrong with that, but you may want more control (Total Control):

• what if Abigail and Billy have worked really hard with their maths and you want to give them a boost!
• maybe Carl and David find it hard to collaborate, "See what you can do when you concentrate, you've won that game together. Well done!"
• or, perhaps Eliza has been feeling a little low, and a win at a maths game may lift her motivation and self-confidence.

Yes, this may seem a little devious. But teaching is an act - and any actor can benefit from a secret strategy or a few special effects.

The activity remains 'all involving' however, since no one knows that you have predetermined which bingo card will win. Also, all of the children playing need to think and talk with their partner about each problem they hear to check whether or not it does appear on their board. The maths questions and bingo cards have been devised carefully so that every player will always have at least five numbers to cover, many will have between 6 and 10 matching numbers on their bingo cards.

Other thoughts:

What if I want to play without knowing who will win?

There are a couple of ways:

• Shuffle the bingo cards and deal them out face down, then choose a question card at random.
• The bingo cards feature numbers from 1 to 50. So you could play this in the more traditional way; replacing the question cards with 50 slips featuring those numbers, drawing them at random and making up problems as you go

What if I don't use all of the cards?

If you work with a small group; perhaps only using 4 bingo cards, just make sure you know which ones are in play (eg. A, B, C and D) and then pick up one of the corresponding question sheets.

Here's a thumbnail shot of the bingo cards, 3 per A4 page:

Here's a thumbnail of the question sheets, 3 per A4 page (only two pages shown here):

This bingo activity a development of an idea I used many years ago - you might love it, you might hate it! Either way, let me know by posting a comment below.

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