Maybe you’re a teacher, a parent, or an aunt whose niece and nephew are visiting for two weeks and you want a way to create something fun around reading? You want it to be less formal than a summer reading program and more individualized to your young readers. What to do? Book Bingo! It’s one of the easiest ways to craft a completely personalized set of reading challenges for the readers in your life.
Creating a reading bingo card can be as easy as drawing a table in Word, hand drawing a grid, or printing out one of the hundreds you can find online, such as this one from the fine folks at Scholastic. You can also use an online bingo card generator (used to make this one pictured above) where you can customize each square, put in your parameters (three across? or the traditional five down and across?) and then stipulate how many you want generated. The squares will be in varied places so that friends, siblings (or classmates) all have different cards.
It was fun digging around online and seeing the variety of spins on book bingo for kids. Some go for a book per square while others focus more on the act of reading. My favorite kid-friendly reading bingo cards have a mix of types of books and then an emphasis on where and when you read:
- Read outside.
- Read on the grass.
- Read in the kitchen.
- Read after dark.
- Read before lunch.
- Read after swimming.
I also love the challenges with a canine twist: Read a book about a dog; read a book to a dog (or a stuffed animal); read a book about an animal that isn’t a dog.
And that middle “Free” square you usually have on a Bingo card? Keep it book-centric with something like “Readers Choice” or “Recommend a book to someone else.” Oh, and don’t forget to make a book bingo card for yourself!