While it's probably true that some students more of an aptitude for math than others, it's also true that different students have different levels of interest in the subject. Good maths teachers are therefore always on the lookout for activities and games which can encourage classroom participation by all students - not just the top math students. Ideally such activities should be fun, engaging, educational (of course), and given the financial constraints that most of today's teachers work under - not requiring of expensive or specialist materials.

One such classroom activity that is increasingly popular with math teachers (and in fact teachers of other subjects too), is bingo. The thing about bingo is that it's incredibly simple for students to learn and play, that it can be adapted to a variety of different topics (by printing bingo cards containing numbers, additions, subtractions, multiplication times tables, long divisions, fractions, or whatever you're teaching), and that it's very cheap. Obviously you do need the specialist bingo cards, but that isn't difficult - any teacher can print them easily using his or her computer - either working using ready-made free bingo printables or by using affordable but easy-to-use bingo card printing software.

The final thing worth pointing out is that there are quite different few ways to play the game in math class. In each case, the teacher acts as bingo caller, but you can vary the game mechanics in different ways: you could (for example) print questions on the cards (and students must fill in the answers to these questions before they can tick off that item), or you could put answers on the cards (which students have to match up to questions as they are called out), or any other variation that you prefer.

By S. Tanna. For free bingo card printables, please go to http://www.bingocardscreator.com/

To create your own custom bingo cards, please go to http://www.bingocardprinter.com/