Making Bingo Cards

You can make bingo cards yourself by hand.  Take care, though, this takes an awful lot of time (budget 40 minutes for 30 people, triple that if you want to include pictures and need to cut/paste them together). 

Instead, I’ve created a set of free Hanukkah bingo cards which you can download.  They look like the following card:

You can download the Hanukkah bingo activity by clicking here.  There are 32 cards in that file, printed 4 to a page.  It is in PDF format — your computer can almost certainly already read it.  Just print, cut, and go.

Customize Unlimited Bingo Cards On Any Topic

You can use the free trial of the Bingo Card Creator software to customize and print up to 15 of your own cards.  (If you need more than that, the software is very reasonably priced at $24.95.)  The software is available for Mac and PC.  To save time, you can load up a Hannukah word list under the Wizards menu from the software.  (Don’t forget to go to the File -> Print Call List option to print a call list!  It will scramble the words up for you, the same as drawing from a hat.)

How to play Hanunukah Bingo

1)  Everyone starts by marking their free space.  

2)  The caller reads one word off at a time, randomly.  (How you randomize it is up to you.  You can put all the words in a hat or print a call list from the software described above.)   Everyone marks the word on their card, perhaps with a sticker or, if not, a writing utensil works fine.

3)  Anyone who gets all the words filled in a row, column, or diagonal should stand up and shout “Bingo!”  That person is the winner.  You may want to give them a small prize.  You can continue playing for multiple winners if you wish.  (Hint: If you mark the words that have been called with small candies like M&Ms, everyone wins…)

Happy Holidays

A big Shalom to you and your family, from my family and I.  We wish you health and happiness, now and always.  Enjoy the bingo!