The Best Ideas are Stolen Ideas (Vol. I)
In a workshop recently, Mike Coxon said he was told by a professor that the key to success in education was “CASE: Copy And Steal Everything”.
Of course, you want to make sure to give credit where it is due and respect other teachers’ copyrights and intellectual property. So in this first homage to that philosophy, I bring you the best new thing I’ve stolen–Strip Bingo.
No. Not THAT kind of strip. Although kids will appreciate that name! It’s funny! But be careful if you send a bunch of kids home telling their parents that they played Strip Bingo in class…could really raise some eyebrows.
Before I tell you the deal with this game, let me tell you my problem with pretty much all games: They are a waste of time.
Sure, I’ve played bingo. Does this sound familiar?
T: Take a couple of minutes to fill out your card. (10 minutes pass). Let’s start.
S: I’m not ready.
T: Hurry. (Three minutes pass) Okay, the first word is Apple.
S: What?
S: What does that mean?
S: (to another) What did she say?
T: The next word is Banana.
S: Did you call Kumquat yet?
S: Wait, did she say Banana or Blueberry?
(Someone finally yells BINGO!)
T: Read back what you’ve got.
S: Apple, wait–what is this?
T: Banana.
S: Yeah. Um, Carrot. (And so on)
S: She cheated!
And 30+ minutes of class are gone.
I’ve done flyswatter. I’ve done Jeopardy. I have turned college drinking games into language games. Seriously. And they DO have value. They are a brain break for kids. They are FUN. They generally aren’t that mentally taxing for us as teachers. But they also don’t often allow students to get good input, and to give output that isn’t super challenging.
So I am always excited when Martina Bex posts about games in her blog. Why? Because Martina doesn’t post many time-killers. She is most known for spreading the Mafia game around the TPRS community. But this post is about Strip Bingo. My new favorite and potentially really, really low-prep game. Martina gives credit to Kristin Duncan for this game, so I shout out to Kristin as well.
If you prefer fancy schmancy polished things, you can get yourself a copy of a template here. It is 2-pages and suitable for framing. If you’re really bad at decorating, that is. If you want to read Martina’s post about this game, you can find that on her site.
How to play:
Kids still make their own cards, but instead of a 5×5 grid, they use a strip with 5, 6, 7, or so segments in a row. Heck, you could probably make a game last for weeks if you use enough squares! They use vocabulary words of the current topic. After cards are filled out, the teacher reads something that contains these words. If the word on the END of a student’s strip is called, that student rips it off. Which leaves a new end! Words from the middle may get called, depending on how the student wrote them. That’s fine, but they can only tear off the ends. The first student to tear off all pieces and then have their last single piece called is the winner!
We played in AP Spanish Literature, while learning about the historical context of El burlador de Sevilla y el convidado de piedra. Just for contrast, I used this with my Spanish 1 kids doing some of Martina’s day of the dead stuff!