Tuesday was our annual Bingo for Books event. I posted about it on my Facebook page and had several questions about it, so I wanted to elaborate here. It’s surprisingly simple and so much fun.
At our school, Bingo for Books started as a fourth grade event, then it moved to third grade, and is now a combined 3/4 family night. It’s put together by our Communities in Schools coordinator. She sends home invitations with all third and fourth grade students. Their entire families (parents, older and younger siblings) are invited. This gives us an approximate number.
Our coordinator gets new and gently used books donated by our community (especially a large church in the area). She also asks our Parent/Teacher Organization for money to order Scholastic books. The teachers sort those books into approximate grade levels. We also ordered bookmarks for the kids this year.
On the actual day, students and their families return to school at 6:00pm. We serve light refreshments, but the highlight is our long table full of books, spread out by approximate grade levels. The entire family is allowed to play (though there is a story time for really young children if parents want the free child care during the event).
When you get a Bingo, you get to grab a free book off the table! We play with lots of winners in each round before we clear the boards so everyone leaves with a stack of books. We also have door prizes for adults (educational books and gift cards). This year, Texas Roadhouse gave us free appetizer coupons too. We usually have more books than we can give away in an hour, so everyone grabs an extra book on the way out the door. We save the rest for the next year.
It’s a long day, but it’s a fun night. I love seeing parents play games with their children. The best part though? The kids came into school today and were sooo excited about their free books that they confessed to staying up too late reading them. Love that!
Do you do any family nights at your school?
What a fun idea! We do a program at our school called Camp Read where students participate in literacy activities in a camp-themed gym.
The REAL Teachers of Orange County
What an awesome idea! I love it!
Love the idea…we have a book swap every year, but this would be a lot more fun!
I'm on the parent involvement committee and we wanted to do a game night, this might be a great option! We were thinking of doing 4 rooms and having parents and students move, but this might be a good idea for 1 game to start with.
I'd love to hear how it goes if/when any of you try it at your school!
This is a great idea! We do lots of family math and reading nights but haven't done anything like this. Thanks for sharing!
Allison
Miss Allison's Class
I'd love for info about how you pulled this event off? Looking to do this for Read Me Week at my school.
trjones24@gmail.com
thanks! 🙂
I love this idea! Do you use regular bingo sheets or special made sheets? I was just thinking it would be fun for blanks to contain book titles or characters. The announcer could use a trivia question to allow participants to guess the correct answer before filling in their square. Just curious what methods work best!
It’s pretty crazy calling all the numbers, listening for BINGO, and checking the winners so we just use regular BINGO boards. We kept it super simple for everyone, both on us to plan and on them to play. =)
I LOVE this idea!! Do you have any handouts that I can use? I have been wanting to do an event like this at my school.
We don’t give any handouts, it’s a super simple night where everyone comes, plays BINGO, has a snack, and takes home a few extra books to boost their at home reading.