Multiplication BINGO

This is the fourth BINGO game I've made for my son and I can honestly say that the shine hasn't worn off. My boy still loves BINGO and I still love how easy it is for him to learn amazing things by playing it.

When my son's classroom teacher told me he was ready for multiplication and division at the last parent-teacher conference, I took it as my green light to start really challenging him to learn the math facts.

I made six BINGO cards with the answers to a variety of multiplication problems. (Download the game I made here free). I printed them and the problems on card stock, grabbed a multiplication table (in case my son got stuck), and a bowl of cheerios to use as game pieces. We were ready … almost.

When my son got home, we read a great book of multiplication math problems cleverly disguised as children's fiction. My son had loads of fun with Suzanne Slade's book Multiply on the Fly. We whizzed through the book with my son firing off answers to the insect-inspired queries as quickly as the buzzing bugs on the pages within.

Then we got busy playing.

I turned over all the calling cards so the problems were face down and one by one drew them. I was careful to cover the answer with my thumb as I showed him the problems.

If the answer was on our game cards, we placed a cheerio over it.

We got through quite a few problems, and my son only needed to reference the multiplication table once (8 x 8), before he got a diagonal 5-in-a-row and hollered exuberantly, "BINGO!!!!"

He might have won the game, but having made practicing multiplication a riot for my son made ME feel like a winner too.

I love that.