Free Bingo Card Generator Programs That Work Well For Teaching English

(Card sample from Apollo´s Templates)

It`s harder than I thought to find decent, free Bingo Card generator programs that work easily and well, and produce nice looking bingo cards.

I considered the following 7 bingo card generator sites in my evaluation:

• Print-bingo.com
• http://www.dltk-cards.com/
• https://bingobaker.com/view/1
• http://bingo.saksena.net/bingo 
•  http://www.apollostemplates.com/templates-bingo/
• http://www.teach-nology.com
• http://www.bingocardapp.com
• http://www.brownielocks.com/bingocard.html   

 I decided that I liked these ones the best:

1.      1. Bingo Card App

 The quickest and easiest free tool for making basic, multi-purpose cards with short words or numbers that I have found is Bingo Card App

 http://www.bingocardapp.com

2. Apollo´s Templates

 For quick and easy bingo cards with numbers, I liked  Apollo´s Templates.

 http://www.apollostemplates.com/templates-bingo/

3-      Print-bingo.com

Very basic, home-made looking card, but good for cards with either  text ( words) or numbers, fairly easy to use ( although you have to read a lot of text), and useful for generating  a class set ( 20 cards) at a time:  Print-bingo.com

http://print-bingo.com

DETAILS, DETAILS, DETAILS:

Below is a fuller description of how to use these bingo card generator sites.

1.  Bingo Card App

 http://www.bingocardapp.com

Although there were problems with some of the layout options (recommendation: don´t choose the option to make 4 cards per page. Choose the options for making 1 or 2 cards per page instead), I really liked the major features of this program.

Advantages:

-          Super easy and intuitive to use

-          Can add your own title, and make cards with letters or numbers

-          Instant preview available

-          Ability to download and save your bingo cards and print them later, at your leisure

Disadvantages

-          Limited to making 8 cards in total ( not 8 pages of cards)

-           

2. Apollo´s Templates.

 http://www.apollostemplates.com/templates-bingo/

Advantages:

- generates professional, traditional looking BINGO cards, not cards that look like a home-made chart in Word

- automatically makes 4 cards at a time for free ( click ' create new cards' to make more)

-very quick and easy to generate a set of nice looking, bingo cards

Disadvantages

-not customizable. Can only make cards with numbers on them, not words-

-can´t save to file; must print out immediately ( unless your printer program allows you to save as pdf during the print process)

- can´t generate more than 4 cards of set dimensions at a time

-no master list of numbers for the caller to refer to

-only includes numbers from 1 to 75

- not all numbers between 1 and 75 are included on the four free cards generated.

How to Generate a set of Bingo Cards:

1. Go to http://www.apollostemplates.com/templates-bingo/

2.  Don´t get sucked into clicking on the arrow ( it just shows you ads)! 

Look down the page for the heading ' Step 1', and click on a colour (for example, ' Blue Bingo Cards' ).

3. The site will automatically show you a blank template with a banner area in the colour your chose.

Click ' Create New Cards' to generate one sheet of cards, a randomized set of 4 cards.

4. Print immediately using your browser print buttons.

Runner up #3 -  Print-bingo.com

http://print-bingo.com

Advantages:

-          Good tool to use to make cards for games that help students review numbers up to 75 but it´s not possible to make cards that are based on a smaller number range unless you make them yourself (and then you will need at least 24 numbers).

Disadvantages:

-You need a lot of unique phrases or words (25) (24 if the centre square is free) to generate just one or two bingo cards.

-You can´t make less than the 5 pages of cards that are automatically generated ( 20 cards). Well, it´s not the end of the world since you can always just cut out and use the cards you need.

- Doesn´t generate a full list of all the terms you used, so you need to make (or save) your original list so you have something for the bingo caller to use, and a way to see a ‘master list’ of words at a glance.

How to Generate a set of Bingo Cards:

To make instant, automatically generated cards with a random set of numbers, it takes just 3 clicks ( but takes a lot of reading to figure out the options).

1.       On the homepage, click on  I've read enough. Let me generate bingo cards!

2.        Then click on   Standard numbered bingo cards

3.       Then choose how many cards per page (confusingly labeled options like ‘two numeric bingo card per page’)

You can generate 2 or 4 per page, 5 pages at a time (for free – more and you have to pay to upgrade).

To make cards with words:

1.       On the homepage, click on  I've read enough. Let me generate bingo cards!

2.       Then select Custom bingo cards with your own word or phrase lists

3.       Then click on create custom bingo cards and follow the prompts

CLASS ACTIVITY IDEAS

Of  course, it´s easy to picture how to use BINGO in the class setting. Just play the game like normal.

Variations:

1. BLACKOUT - have students take turns calling out one thing on their card until someone has them all covered, at which point this student can yell '' BINGO'' or ''BLACKOUT'', as you prefer, in order to win.

2. CLUES AND ANSWERS - have a call list made of clues, or definitions for the words that appear on the cards. Optional: Add a degree of difficulty by requiring that the student must remember, and 'call back', the clue / definition and match it to the word they marked off on their card, in order to win.

If you have found a different program that you like better for making free BINGO cards, please let me know!