PENCIL BINGO - ESL Vocabulary Game

Hello & Happy Monday!

I'm so glad you could make it this week! I want to take a moment to thank you for visiting my blog. The response has been very good and, honestly, I'm so honored. I've always loved creating activities and worksheets for my students. My colleagues seem to like using them. Yet, to have so many people you've never met read and download your stuff, for a new blogger like me, it's a little humbling and sort of marvelous in a way.

This week's worksheet is a Bingo Game. I call it Pencil Bingo because it doesn't use bingo chips. Using chips means having to make the game boxes bigger, which takes up more space. It also means having to remember to bring Bingo chips with you to class. To keep it simple, I have students circle their guesses right on the worksheet.

(A variation is to use semisweet chocolate chips, but this works better with adults! Trust me when I say this does not always work with kids.)

Students play Pencil Bingo and review vocabulary related to things you would find in the city & parks & the home & kitchen.

This worksheet requires no preparation, but you'll need to take a minute to explain the activity to them.

How to Play Pencil Bingo

1. Tell students how to play Bingo. 

Tell them what "getting Bingo" means. They must get all 5 items in a row, be it across, up, down or diagonally. I usually draw lines on the board to show them what I mean.

2. Hand out the worksheets.

3. Students work in pairs. 

Half the class gets one worksheet and the other half gets the other. Students use only their worksheets. There's no cutting out. 

A Bingo Game Card looks like this:

Student A reads the written clues out loud from his sheet while Student B circles his guesses.

4. Students  switch roles.

Students switch tasks, but they keep the same worksheet.

If you have candy on hand, you can give out a piece of candy to any student who gets Bingo. One year, I was teaching kids and I gave them clementines. The kids were absolutely ecstatic. I had to toss the rest of the lesson because they were so wired, and because they took time peeling their clementines, but it was worth it!

I hope you and your students enjoy Pencil Bingo. Enjoy your Monday, and have a great week!

Thank you for visiting!
Faiza Raintree

To download the worksheets for this lesson, click below.