dankcards

Vocabulary bingo: words on the cards, definitions on the caller sheet

You read out “a push or a pull”, the class works out the word, and whoever has force on their card covers it. Type one word = definition per line, or start from the 32 science words below. Every student gets a different card.

One pair per line: word = clue. A tab (pasted from a spreadsheet) or a spaced dash word - clue works too.
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Your cards

Press Generate cards to see them here.

How to run a vocabulary review with it

Print one card per student and one caller sheet for yourself; Download PDF puts the caller sheet after the cards. The caller sheet lists the definitions in a shuffled order, one per line with a box to tick, and the word each one belongs to is printed small and grey at the end of the line. Read the first definition aloud, give the class a few seconds to think, and tick it. Students cover the word they think it describes. When someone calls BINGO, have them read their covered words back: you check each against the small print on your sheet instead of trying to remember 32 answers. A wrong cover is the useful moment of the game, because the whole class hears which definition it really matched.

Because the cards show words and you read definitions, students practise the harder direction of recall: they hear the meaning and have to retrieve the word, as in a written test, rather than recognising a word they can already see. Each definition is called once and each word is on the sheet once, so a square can only ever be covered by its own definition.

Writing your own pairs

Put one pair on each line: the word first, then the separator, then the clue. Three separators work: an equals sign (orbit = The path one object follows around another), a tab, which is what you get when you copy two columns out of a spreadsheet or a table in a word processor, or a dash with a space on each side (orbit - The path one object follows around another). The first separator on a line wins, so a clue may contain a hyphen or a further equals sign, and a word with a hyphen inside it, such as x-ray, is kept whole. A line with no separator, nothing before it or nothing after it is not quietly thrown away: it is listed under the box with its line number and what is wrong, and stays out of the game until you fix it. The same goes for a word that appears twice, since two different clues for one square would make the game unfair. Blank lines are ignored. Your list is saved in this browser, so it is still there next lesson; nothing is sent anywhere.

Clues do not have to be definitions. The same format works for a picture-free foreign-language review (chien = dog, read the English and they find the French), opposites (shallow = the opposite of deep), a gap in a sentence (orbit = The Moon takes about 27 days to ___ the Earth) or a date in history. Keep a clue to one short sentence: in the PDF each clue gets one line, and one longer than about 80 characters is printed smaller to fit, and cut off with “...” past roughly twice that. Print cards and Caller sheet in the browser wrap long clues instead.

How many words, and how long a game takes

A card needs 8 words at 3x3 with a free space, 9 without, 16 at 4x4, 24 at 5x5 with a free space and 25 without, and you need at least that many pairs. More pairs than one card holds is what makes the game work: with the 32 science words on 4x4 cards, half the words are on any one card, so about every second definition is a hit for each student. In 300 simulated games with 30 cards, the first line came on the 9th call in the middle case, and between the 6th and the 11th in 8 games out of 10. The first full card came around the 28th of the 32 calls. At about 30 seconds a definition, a first-line game takes 5 minutes and a blackout uses most of a 20-minute review slot. On 5x5 with a free space each card holds 24 of the 32 words, so most calls hit everyone and it plays more like a check that the whole class knows every word; on 3x3 a first line comes after about 6 calls, which suits a short warm-up.

Printing, and what the PDF cannot do

Four cards per page on Letter or A4 suits a class of 30 (8 sheets); choose 2 per page for younger students or long words. The set number on each card and on the caller sheet rebuilds the same set: type it into Set number with the same list and you get the same cards and the same calling order back. The PDF uses the built-in Helvetica font, so letters outside Western European scripts (Greek, Cyrillic, Chinese, emoji) print as “?”; the page tells you which ones before you print, and Print cards in the browser shows them correctly. Everything is made in your browser and nothing is uploaded.

The 32 general science words and their definitions

The sample set covers matter and its states, forces, living things and Earth and space, at the level of a middle-grade general science course. Each definition was written for this page in plain language a 10-year-old can follow; none is copied from a dictionary or a textbook. Delete the lines you have not taught yet, or add your own topic words underneath.

WordWhat the caller reads out
atomThe smallest bit of an element that is still that element
moleculeTwo or more atoms joined together into one particle
elementA pure substance made of only one kind of atom
compoundA new substance formed when different elements join chemically
mixtureThings stirred or put together that can be separated again
solidMatter that keeps its own shape, like a brick or an ice cube
liquidMatter that flows and takes the shape of whatever holds it
gasMatter that spreads out to fill all the space it is given
evaporationWater slowly drying up into the air, like a puddle on a sunny day
condensationWater vapour cooling into drops, like mist on a cold window
meltingA solid warming up and turning into a liquid
freezingA liquid cooling down and turning into a solid
gravityThe pull that makes a dropped ball fall to the ground
frictionThe force that slows two surfaces rubbing against each other
magnetAn object that pulls iron and steel toward it
energyWhat it takes to make something move, heat up, light up or change
forceA push or a pull
massHow much matter is in an object, measured in grams or kilograms
volumeHow much space something takes up
densityHow tightly mass is packed into a space; it decides what floats
photosynthesisHow green plants use sunlight, water and air to make their food
cellThe tiny unit every living thing is built from
habitatThe natural home where a plant or animal lives
predatorAn animal that hunts other animals for food
preyAn animal that is hunted and eaten by another animal
fossilThe remains or print of an ancient living thing, kept in rock
erosionWind, water or ice slowly wearing rock and soil away
orbitThe curved path one object follows around another in space
planetA large round world that travels around a star
thermometerThe tool you use to measure how hot or cold something is
hypothesisA guess you can test, made before an experiment
conductorA material that lets heat or electricity pass through it easily