thanks everyone for all of the great advice. I had acutally been thinking of some kind of Bingo game but I couldn't remember exactly how we did it. I played it at a home party one time. Anyway, you guys are terrific. I love this board and website and I wish you all a fun and successful school year!!
christy
Thanks CapKanga! You'll notice I avoided mentioning time durations. I just couldn't recall how long GAB usually took. Five minutes sounds like a pretty good guesstimate of the time. Thus, my final suggestion expands to: if, after five minutes, nobody has filled their card yet, then announce that they may fill a second square.
When we played our bingo. The first person to get the whole bingo card filled in five minutes was the winner. The presentor gave the winner a prize that she brought with her from Georgia. Nothing big but I think it had a poem on it. You could make your own coupons maybe for a discount on a school shirt, or a free book at the book fair, etc. :eek:
If you set up a classic 5x5 card, with "FREE" in the middle, you will need 24 items. 30-35 may be cutting it a bit close (remember, this game is usually played that you need a "blackout", not a "straight bingo"). Make sure you have plenty of squares that lots of people can sign, and not too many "believe I've been abducted by aliens" squares.
"Winning" will probably become a matter of being the first to locate all the odd items. You can also relax the rules, and allow people to sign a second square -- this essentially doubles the size of your player pool. You might want to wait a bit, and then announce a rule change for the second square -- make them try and do it the hard way first.
I went to a training session with a bunch of teachers and administrators. Talk about nervous. Anyway, the presentor had a great ice breaker. We played bingo. The sheet had 24 squares on it, the squares had remarks like i watch tv regulary,i enjoy reading, i have brown eyes, i have a sister, etc. you could only fill in one square with your name then you had to go around and find other people who could fill in another square. We had five minutes boy it sure broke the ice. We were all laughing so hard trying to find someone who would match a square. You could tailor the bingo to your surroundings. Hope this helps.
