We held our bingo night a short time after Mardis Gras, we ordered mardis gras beads on-line that were very inexpensive. Each child that came in received a string of "Lucky Bingo Beads" to wear while they were playing. The kids loved it. So while everyone did not get a prize, each child went home with a "prize" from the evening. (The beads we ordered were green and many kids also wore them to school for St. Patty's Day!)
My experience with bingo for books has been that not all students have to win a book, but to increase winners we have "friendship" bingo. A second-time winner selects a friend to select the book prize. We also play a Bingo card until we have multiple winners on a card.. sometimes as many as ten winners before we start a new game. Last month we had 65 winners out of 100 students. All students received a token gift (a sucker, but I've also used bookmarks) as an exit prize. I use books from the annual book fair donated from the sales. Also, teachers sometimes donate books they have earned from bonus points from the monthy book orders from the individual classes.
We did our first book bingo in March as part of our Celebrate Reading Night, each child received a brand new book when they arrived and then had chances at other stations to win more books!
As far as book bingo we do not expect every child to win, we actually had kids who won 3 or 4 books, for our selection we had called our scholastic rep and ordered $400.00 worth of books, they sent a nice selection. We also take our book fair vouchers and use them to get books from scholastic as well, you can get slightly bruised books and to be honest I can't see what is wrong with them. For reference our school has 467 kids, and doing it at night not all of them will come...something to keep in mind.
"When you stop learning you stop growing."
I was thinking of doing this same thing for our school. I was going to purchase bookmarks for all the student who did not win. It is something inexpensive and someone goes home with something related to reading.
Hold a "Gently Used Book Drive" before the event. Have some used for this event and the rest donate to your local children's hospital or shelter. You'd be surprised as to how many books you can get when parents start cleaning out the clutter!
We ask for donated baked goods & sell them .25 or .50. Items purchased at bulk food stores can be sold & some profit made.
We have our bingo games, obtain our winners and then keep playing. We can have up to 10 winners from one bingo game. That way we have more kids winning & less frustration or crying because they were "so close!".
Break out the books into grade level reading and have the winners come up and select one book from the selection.
Making a positive difference one project at a time <img src=images/smilies/smile.gif>
HI,
We are an elementary school of about 500 students and would like to hold a bingo for books night in the fall. Can anyone give me the set up of it and how to run it efficiently? We do not have a huge budget and probably can't afford to buy 500 books. Do you feel everyone has to win? Do you charge for snacks and have bingo be free? Thanks for any help you can offer.
