Break out a game of bingo and get your holly jolly back. You can use the free online trial of Bingo Card Creator to create a set of Christmas bingo cards. Or, if you are really in a hurry, download 32 free Christmast bingo cards to print and start playing. Even better, let your little elves do the printing and cutting.

If your mood is an especially deep shade of winter blue, you might need add a little kick to your bingo punch. If your students are already pros at bingo, you might to need to try some variations to keep things fresh. Here are a few suggestions to make the bingo games more interesting.

• Have the winner be the caller for the next game. Kids always love a chance to do something special. Letting the winner be the caller is a great reward and it helps reduce the odds of one person winning multiple times.
• Give an extra prize if the winner has Bingo more than one way.  This is a great strategy teaching tool. The kids will have to decide if they should yell “Bingo” as soon as they have a row, column, etc. or if they should wait and try to get bingo another way and win a better prize. See 12 Ways Of Bingo for variations on winning patterns.
• Allow multiple winners per round. This is a great idea especially if your students are younger and still learning to read. You might allow 1 to 5 winners, for example, per game. This helps keep interest up and improves everyone’s chances of winning a prize. It also helps level the playing field for kids who do not read as fast or have trouble finding the words on the card.

Just like other activities, some times a new twist for your bingo game is needed to keep the game jingling all the way. A great way to increase the enthusiasm for a good game of bingo is to allow other winning configurations in addition to the standard horizontal, vertical, and diagonal lines.

Your first step is to use the free online trial of Bingo Card Creator to create a set of bingo cards. To get started even faster, download free Christmas bingo cards to print and start playing.

Ways To Increase The Joy

Here is a list of bingo variations to get you started:

1. Four Corners. Pretty self-explanatory. Cover the four corners of the card.
2. The Box. Fill the four lines around the outside of the bingo card.
3. The Little Box. Fill the center square and the eight squares surrounding it.
4. X Marks The Spot.  Fill both diagonals running through the center square..
5. The Cross. Fill both the vertical and horizontal lines that run through the middle square, also known as The Plus.
6. Rows. Starting with the first row, fill the first, third, and fifth rows. Or, fill the second and fourth rows, maybe for a smaller prize.
7. Stripes. Same rules as above, but use for the vertical. Also known as columns.
8. The Intersection. Any row, column, or diagonal that intersects with another complete row, column, or diagonal.
9. The Right Triangle. Either diagonal plus two sides that form a right triangle.
10. The Diamond. The diamond formed by connecting the middle square of each side. It consists of 8 squares.
11. Blackout. Another self-explanatory variation. Blackout your card by filling every square. This variation can also be called Coverall.
12. Letter Bingo. Create patterns for each letter of the alphabet, or even better, let your students figure out patterns for each letter.

After playing a few games and trying some of the variation above, your students will very likely have new ideas of their own on how to make the game better. Encourage them to explore and innovate by allowing them to create their own variations and then trying them out on the whole class.

Download Printable Christmas Bingo Boards

You can download the Christmas bingo boards by clicking here.  The cards are in PDF format, which you need Adobe Acrobat Reader to view.  You probably already have Reader installed as it comes free with most computers, but you can get it here if you need it.

You may also want to print a call list.

Print Unlimited Bingo Boards on Any Subject

If you need more boards or want to customize them, you can do so with the free trial of Bingo Card Creator, which prints up to 15 boards (or as many as you want if you buy the software).  Click here to download the free trial, follow the instructions onscreen, and once you have the program opened up select the Wizards menu, then select Holidays, then pick one of the Christmas lists.  You’ll be printing out in about a minute.

Instructions for Christmas Bingo

1)  Everyone gets to mark off the free space to start the game off.

2)  One person calls the game, by randomly calling out words from the list.  You can do this by either cutting up one card and throwing it into a hat/bag, then pulling from the hat, or by using a randomized call list.  The Bingo Card Creator software mentioned earlier can create a call list from the File menu item Print Call List.  I think it is most fun to use Christmas stickers to mark the cards up, but you can also use regular writing utensils.

3)  The first player to get 5 words marked in any row, column, or diagonal should stand up and yell “Bingo!”  That person wins, if all five of their words were actually called (careful, sometimes young kids are known to get a little overenthusiastic).    You can keep playing through multiple winners.  You can also give the winner(s) a small treat.  At my house, we sometimes let the winner cut the first slice of turkey.

Other Ways To Play Christmas Bingo

Some people prefer word lists a bit different than the ones pictured here.  I produced a few variations:

Traditional Christmas bingo (with call list), which concentrates on the Christmas story — the reason for the season, as they say in church.

Seasonal holiday bingo (with call list) — I can’t promise that it is ACLU approved but it should past muster with almost everyone.

Hanukkah bingo, for our Jewish friends.

Kwanzaa bingo — Kwanzaa is a relatively new holiday which some African Americans celebrate, often in addition to more religious holidays.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Whatever holiday you and your family are celebrating, I wish you peace, prosperity, and happiness, now and always.  Please enjoy the bingo!

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!