Addition bingo cards

How to run addition bingo with a class

Print one card per student and the caller sheet for yourself; in the PDF the caller sheet comes after the cards. Read the first sum aloud, “six plus seven”, wait a few seconds so everyone can count or think it through, and tick it off. Anyone with 13 on their card covers that square. Work down the sheet in order. The first student with a full row, column or diagonal calls BINGO and reads their covered answers back to you. Each answer is printed in small grey type next to its sum on your sheet, so you can check a win at a glance instead of adding under pressure. Counters, cubes, scrap paper squares or a pencil cross all work for covering.

Every answer is called exactly once, with one sum. With 0 to 10 there are 121 sums but only 21 different answers, because 7 can be 0 + 7, 1 + 6, 2 + 5, 3 + 4 and the same pairs turned round. The caller sheet holds one sum per answer, so a square is never hit by two different calls and nobody waits for an answer that already went by under another sum. The sum chosen for each answer changes from set to set, so a class that plays every week hears 3 + 5 one time and 6 + 2 the next.

Which range for which age

As a rough guide only (your school’s own scheme decides what is taught when): kindergarten children who count on fingers do well with 0 to 5 on a 3x3 card with a free space. That range makes the 11 answers 0 to 10, and each card holds 8 of them, so nearly every call hits nearly every card and nobody sits out for long. When the class knows its number bonds to 10, move to 0 to 10 on a 4x4 card (answers 0 to 20). For older children practising bigger facts, 1 to 20 on a 5x5 card gives answers from 2 to 40 and a longer game.

Three numbers is the step after that. Two numbers from 1 to 10 give only 19 different answers, too few to fill a 5x5 card, so the page refuses it; three numbers from 1 to 10 give 28 (from 3 to 30), enough for a 5x5 with a free space. Three addends reward looking for a ten first: for 8 + 5 + 2, add 8 and 2 to make 10, then 5 more is 15. If your class is just starting three-number sums, keep the range small, such as 1 to 5 on a 3x3 card, where every answer stays at 15 or under. Write the called sum on the board as you read it so children who lose track of the first number can still finish.

Ways to win

A single row, column or diagonal makes a quick game for the last ten minutes of a lesson. Four corners, two lines, or a full card (every square covered) make a longer one; you can play them one after another on the same cards without reprinting. Ask the winner to read out each covered answer and the sum it came from; if one is wrong, play on and give the class a quick look at that sum together.

Printing

Two cards per page on Letter or A4 keeps the answers large enough to read from a desk; four per page saves paper for older students. Press Download PDF to keep the set: the set number printed on each card and on the caller sheet makes the same cards again from this page, so a lost caller sheet can be reprinted. Everything is made in your browser and nothing is uploaded. For times tables, use the multiplication bingo page, which works the same way.