Most of today’s bingo players learned about the game in childhood. It may have been part of a holiday party game in the classroom or rainy day activity. It’s interesting to note that in 18th century Germany, bingo cards were used as a way to teach young children about spelling, animals and multiplication tables.
That educational trend continues even today with bingo being used in new and interesting ways to help teach kids everything from putting together healthy meals at the grocery store to learning the names of birds, butterflies, wildlife, plants and even dinosaurs. Bingo can provide a fun way for children to learn about the world around them and while they get to know how the game of bingo works.
Grocery Store Bingo
The value of bingo in a teaching situation has not been lost on the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The federal agency sent out a tweet encouraging parents to play Grocery Store Bingo with their young children at the grocery store in order to teach them about nutrition. The USDA’s tweet linked to a bingo card for parents to download. Whenever the food in the basket corresponds to five across in any direction, they get a bingo!
Bingo Games for Kids on Pinterest
Pinterest is becoming increasingly popular for just about anything you care to name. That also includes having a seemingly endless array of bingo games aimed toward kids of all ages. Whether you are planning an activity for the kids to do on a road trip such as car bingo, or trying to teach them about shapes or get them interested in an upcoming holiday, simply do a search on the words “bingo” and “kids” and you could end up spending hours on the site looking at all of the different choices that someone has created a bingo game around.
Young children can present a real challenge, especially when they are just learning how to manipulate the world around them. Author Pinky McKay started to refer to three-year-olds as “Threenagers” in her parenting books. Like teenagers, three-year-olds can be demanding and temperamental. The Huffington Post ran an article featuring a clickable game card for those with young children to mark off the common behaviors of their own “threenager”.
Kids Bingo Games, Parents Magazine
Parents magazine has been in print for decades and their online store features several pages of bingo games by various vendors that parents, homeschool teachers and others can purchase. No matter if you are looking for a traditional bingo game set up, complete with hopper and bingo balls, or something a bit more specialized, you’re likely to find it on the many pages of Parents magazine’s online store devoted just to all of the different bingo games that are available.
Bingo Smart Phone Apps for Kids
Many children start interacting with electronics at a very young age. Creators of apps for those devices have gotten the message and have created many bingo apps geared toward children – many of them are available for free for either Android or iPhone, or Amazon’s Kindle devices.
You don’t have to have a mobile device to play bingo. Educational website ABCya.com has alphabet bingo geared toward young children to help them learn letters, as well as other bingo games that teach shapes, numbers and mathematics. The site features grade levels from Pre-Kindergarten up to Grade 5.