We held a Family Bingo Night @ our k-5 school and will be doing again this year. We themed the night as READ-O and printed bingo cards(you can goolge printable bingo cards and make your own). Dried beans were used as the markers. The prizes were books which we ordered thru scholastic book club so it also gave points to the school. We had a concession stand of hot dogs/chips/soda. The students and parents loved it!!! and wanted us to continue games.
First, I saw that our PTA closet actually had a Bingo machine, which is how we came up with the idea.
Then I made up a flyer, but we called it GAME-O night, so that it wasn't associated with gambling.
I wanted this to be a free activity, so I sent a flyer out to all parents asking for donations, and suggested items be purchased at dollar stores. We also asked for snack and drink doantion. We wound up with over 40 prizes and plenty of snacks. (I have seen other schools solicit larger prizes from companies within their town, but the truth is that the kids enjoyed the less expensive stuff.)
I then went onto e-bay and purchased paper Bingo cards at a really inexpensive rate.
The day of the activity we set up a prize table and snack tables.
I had a few parents voluntee to call out numbers, and we also used a large chalk board to mark the numbers that were called so that the kids had a visual reference. The kids simply used crayons to mark their bingo boards, and because the boards came in all kinds of different colors they always knew which board we were playing on when we switched to a new game.
After a game was won, the kids went up to the prize table to choose which prize they wanted. We played for about 45 minutes then took a snack break. After that we just continued on playing until we got down to the last few prizes so that even the last winner got a chance to choose a prize instead of being left with whatever was left on the table.
Oh, I also have a few parents volunteer to help the younger kids with keeping up on marking their boards.
It really was a nice activity and we're planning on doing it again this year.
Hi, I've searched the boards for an answer to my question... but I'm hoping you all can give me some more details..
I'd like to do a family bingo night at our 5-6 grade school. However, I've never been to one and I'd really appreciate anyone whose had experience with these replying with specific details.. Wow, that was a long sentence.
Anyway.. I need to know start to finish how to do this.. how to get prizes, how to run the games.. how to control it so it doesn't get out of hand.. things like that.
Please help me out if you can. You can email me privately at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
Thank you SO much!!
