People Bingo - Examining Personal Identity and Building Community
When students feel known by their classmates and teachers, they are more likely to take risks and engage in honest dialogue. People Bingo is a strategy that helps build a cohesive classroom community by providing a structured, safe way for them to get to know each other and discover similarities that they might share with their classmates.
Step One: Preparation
Create a Bingo card on a piece of paper by dividing it up into five columns and five rows. Designate the middle square a "free space". In each square write a characteristic, experience, or accomplishment that might apply to one or more students in the group.
Sample Prompts for People Bingo Squares:
- speaks another language
- plays a musical instrument
- has a dog
- favorite color is blue
- loves to eat pizza
- recently went to a concert
- has more than 2 siblings
- would love to travel to Australia
- has never eaten shrimp
- is allergic to something
(Click here to view an example of a People Bingo game sheet.)
It is best if every Bingo card is not exactly the same. You might make several sets that contain the same Bingo items, but that arranges them in a different order. Make copies of the Bingo card for every student in the class.
Step Two: Playing the game
Hand out one copy of the People Bingo sheet to each member of the group and make sure that everyone has something to write with. Tell the group that this is a timed assignment so it is important to work quickly. When you give the signal, instruct students to mingle around the room, asking their classmates to sign their names on a “square” that matches their interests, experiences or background. Depending on the size of the group, limit participants to only sign off on either one or two of the squares on each person's People Bingo sheet. This encourages people to meet more people in the larger group. If students do not already know each other, encourage them to introduce themselves before they ask a classmate to sign their Bingo card. The game continues until the first three people in the group call "Bingo." This means they have a vertical or horizontal row of squares that each contain a classmate’s signature.
Step Three: Debrief
Just like with traditional Bingo, have the three winners read off their winning squares and who signed off on them. As characteristics are announced, you can ask students in the class to raise their hands if they share this quality. This way, students get a sense of what they have in common. To help students get to know each other better, you can invite students to provide more details about their experiences.
Step Three: Reflect
After this activity, you might have students write in their journals or on an exit card about their experience participating in People Bingo. Prompts you can use for this reflection include: What did you learn from participating in People Bingo? Identify something that surprised you and something you would like to know more about.
People-in-history Bingo: This same strategy can be used to help students learn about people who lived during a particular historical time period. Assign each student a person in history to represent during this activity. Students might have to do extra research to learn about this individual. Items in the squares should highlight important information about the time period. For example, if you were studying the civil rights movement, squares could include items such as: was a member of SNCC, marched for voting rights in Selma, Alabama, believed in the philosophy of nonviolence, was from the North, and worked for the government.
This is a great activity to use on the first day of school, at the beginning of a Facing History course, or the first time a group of people meet. It can help also begin conversations during an Identity Unit.
This is a great activity to use on the first day of school, at the beginning of a Facing History course, or the first time a group of people meet. It can help also begin conversations during an Identity Unit.
