Almost all students love games. As a matter of fact, many adults like games too! Geometry Bingo is a fun and effective way give students extra practice in many of the topics in Geometry. Practice is very important because there are so many theorems to remember. The Bingo Cards in this project happen to be on the topic of right triangles and right triangle trigonmetry. But you can make your and your students can make your own cards, on any topic at all!

In explaining the game to your students, you might need to tell them the rules of Bingo, first, in case someone has never played Bingo. Then you will need to give them the special rules of Geometry Bingo: to win, you have to have all the squares in a vertical or horizontal line, called by the Bingo reader. Or, some games could require all the squares on the perimeter, or even all the squares on the board; this will depend on the teacher. The trick here is that in order to win, the students must not only have the right numbers called (pure luck), but also must have the correct answer for each problem on their card! They could wait to see which numbers are called, and then "do the math" after their numbers are called, or they can play it safe and do the problems in all of the squares so they will be ready to yell BINGO the minute they have a winning combination.

Students will especially enjoy this game if you have one of those Bingo machines that works by turning a crank so that a ball with the letter and number of a square on the Bingo board comes out. The teacher (or a student) can be the"Bingo Caller.

This is a great way to spend the day before a holiday, or the day before Christmas Vacation; one of those days when the students really don't want to work. This way, they may be so engrossed in the game that they don't even realize they are working!

Now, obviously, the students must not all have the same cards. So in this project, you would need at least 4 different Bingo cards, all with slightly different questions or layout. Of course, you may have multiple shouts of "Bingo" at the same time, but the winner or winners are only those who have all the correct answers!

Here is an example of a Bingo card that teachers or students can make, either using a computer, or drawing by hand. The problems on the card can be taken from any topic in the mathematics curriculum. The top set of squares on each card would remain the same of course, but the rest of the squares would contain different math problems.