April/May
or words to be looked at and called out. Enough game tokens to cover all the pictures on the boards will
be needed, too. Or, you can use pennies or buttons.
Each board should have a different mix of pictures—they can all have the same pictures, but have
them in different places, or they can have some of the same pictures along with some different pictures.
But the cards for the caller have to include all the items that are on all the cards. To play, when a word
is called out, all the players look for its picture on their boards, and put a game token on the picture. The
object is to be the first to cover five in a row (a “bingo”), and then to shout, “Bingo!”.
Bingo games have 25 squares, with five rows down and five columns across. The first person to put
five tokens in a row either vertically, horizontally, or diagonally, is the winner.
Letter and Number Cut-Outs
We have used a set of large (about five inches tall), colorful cardstock upper-case letters, and a set
of large felt lower-case letters (sturdily sewn, with two layers of felt). Both types of letters can be easily
hand-made.
They can be used for schoolwork activities, such as taking several letters at a time and saying their
names and/or sounds. After a child knows the alphabet, he/she can put the letters in ABC order, or match
upper-case letters to lower-case letters, or start to spell words.
Number cut-outs can be used to teach recognition of numerals. Alphabet letters and numbers made of
other materials, such as plastic, rubber crepe foam, and wood can be similarly used.
Alphabet and number puzzles can reinforce learning the shapes of letters and numbers. To do a
puzzle, a child has to look for the letter/number shape to match the piece that he sees and feels in his
hand. Then when he