“Bird Watching in Brazil” Bingo Game
“Bird Watching in Brazil” Bingo Game
Purpose of activity: To do some virtual bird watching in Brazil without the expense and hassle of traveling there. Playing bingo while you are watching helps to keep it interesting even for kids who don’t love to watch birds.
Target age group: ages 6 to adult
Materials needed: color pages printed onto card stock, scissors, tokens to mark squares (or you can just turn them over)
Time needed: One game takes about 20 minutes. If you stop the video often to let younger kids search for birds, it could take longer.
How to prepare: There are three pages for each bingo game. Printing the pattern pages onto heavy card stock is recommended, especially if you are using them in a classroom. (I wanted mine to last a while, so even though I do have a color printer at home, I went to a copy shop and paid to get them printed on super heavy card stock, heavier than my printer can handle. They turned out great and it was worth the price.) Carefully cut the cards apart. Mark the back of each set in a similar way so the cards can be easily sorted if the sets get mixed up. For example, put a yellow dot on the back of all the cards in one set. Put a pink dot on all the cards in a set. Put a green dot on the backs of another set of cards. Etc. Put each set into a plastic bag, or put rubber bands around them. If you want to use tokens, choose something suitable to your situation. Pennies make good tokens, or something edible can be used if you want to use “eating your bingo” as the reward. If you’d rather not use tokens, the cards can be turned over instead.
How to play: Each player arranges his cards into a 6 by 6 square. The video is then started, and players watch the video. Each time they see a bird, they find it on their array of cards and either put a token on it or turn it over. If you want to go make it harder to get a bingo, you can require that players get both a horizontal and vertical line to win. You can keep playing after someone gets a bingo, or you can start over. Just pick up with the video where you left off. When you get to the end of the video you can go back and start it again.
NOTE: The images in both pictures and videos are from random Internet sources. No infringement of copyright is intended. I will never sell this game for profit (and neither will you), so use of images falls under “fair use for educational purposes.”
