While the game of bingo is generally considered a leisure activity and in fact is often played as such, it is also true that variations of the standard game of bingo are often used by teachers and educators. In fact, versions of bingo have been applied to the teaching of K-12 subjects such as reading, vocabulary and mathematics, to the teaching of foreign languages ​​such as Spanish, French, German and Italian, and in business training settings, for example, in safety courses.

Some examples of educational variants of bingo include:

* Sight-Recognizable Word Bingo – Used to help teach children reading skills, particularly sight-recognizable words (such as the words from Dolch’s Sight-Recognizable Word List), which are words that students cannot easily pronounce but most learn to recognize. The teacher says a word and the students look for the corresponding word printed on their bingo worksheet (or “bingo card”).

* Math Bingo: This version of bingo is played using bingo worksheets printed with numbers. However, these are not the standard numbers used on bingo cards, rather they are the answers to the math problems indicated by the teacher. The problems can be as difficult or as easy as the teacher chooses, and this method can be used for a variety of math topics including addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, fractions, decimals, rounding, etc.

* Foreign Language Bingo: The bingo worksheets are printed with words in the particular foreign language, say Spanish, and the teacher makes bingo calls in English. Students must translate the bingo calls and then find the corresponding square on their bingo worksheet.

Of course, there are many other educational variations of bingo, and innovative educators are sure to provide more ideas on this topic. Of course, the key requirement for using any of these versions of bingo in the classroom is to have a set of bingo worksheets with the appropriate elements for the particular lesson. In some cases, it may be possible to purchase such pre-printed worksheets, but they can be expensive and, of course, pre-printed items do not allow the teacher to choose exactly what items they should contain. Therefore, a more economical and flexible approach may be to use a computer and some bingo worksheet creation software; that way the teacher can easily print custom bingo worksheets when needed.