Monday, June 13, 2016

Alphabet Hunt Bingo



A few years ago, I put together a Number Hunt Bingo game for the kids and it turned out to be SO much fun. We put an alphabet hunt on our bucket list that same year, but never got around to it! I was determined this year and liked that the kids were a little further along in their reading than when I first thought of the idea. It forced me to get creative and come up with different levels of challenges using the same cards.





I put together two separate sets of alphabet hunt games. First, bingo cards that we used to explore our neighborhood. At first I let the kids mark off any letters they saw. Kane went up to one or two street signs and did just that and very quickly found Bingo on most of his cards. Cam said she didn't want to take the "easy way out" -- she was looking for "a challenge." So she picked a row of letters on each Bingo card and went out in search of those particular letters. And she usually picked letters that were difficult to find (Q, W, etc.), but found them all over the place -- on city buses, campaign signs, license plates, house placards, etc. Pretty telling of their personalities! To give Kane an extra challenge, I said he had to find words that started with the letters on the card -- not just any word that contained the letters. That slowed him down a bit.






Once we got back to the house, they each picked a bingo card and then found corresponding letter "prompt cards" I made. If they'd used the letter E to get bingo, for example, they picked the E prompt card. Then they had to think of as many words as they could that started with that letter. They had a lot of fun and thought of some great words. Kane particularly got a kick out of thinking of Harry Potter and Star Wars-related words that started with the letter Q.




If you're looking for a fun game with a broad reach in reading skill, try it out! If your kiddos are on the young side, just go searching for the letters on the Alphabet Bingo Cards. And if they are starting to write, have them practice writing letters on each prompt card. If they are older, try one of the variations we did. We used pencils to mark off our Bingo sheets, but you can also use Bingo chips and do this at home just by looking for items you see around the room.

You can download the Bingo cards by clicking RIGHT HERE. And the Alphabet Prompt cards by clicking RIGHT HERE.

Enjoy!

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