Fun Games: Tasty Bingo w/ Free Printable

Print out these tasty bingo cards and grab some snacks from your pantry to play these fun games with your kids as a great summer boredom buster!

With the dog days of summer upon us, staying ahead of the game by keeping your kiddos entertained with fun, fresh ideas can start to be a real challenge. Declarations of “I’m bored!” can make a parent’s skin crawl like no other phrase, so for the next few Wednesdays, I am delighted to have the opportunity to share with you a few of the games and activities I have enjoyed with my children this summer that have kept us all happily occupied.

Today’s activity idea is one that will turn snack time into something special: Edible Bingo! As the mother of three small children, I am always on the lookout for fun diversions that also have educational value, like making homemade seed paper or creating macaroni box puppets to put on a show. With this simple game, children feed their brains as well as their tummies!

Fun Games

Getting Started

To play a game of Tasty Bingo, you will need:

• Small snack foods: crackers, fruit snacks, cereal, etc. (I give you ideas for two of our favorites below)
• Tasty Bingo game board printable PDF: {{Blank Version}} or {{Original Version}}
• Heavy cardstock
• Wet-erase marker (optional)

To begin, print off your game board(s) onto heavy cardstock. To make a game that can be enjoyed over and over again, I recommend laminating your boards, either using self-sealing laminating pouches, or by taking them to your local printer and having them professionally laminated. I had mine done at our local printing shop for around $1.50 apiece.

Printable Tasty Bingo

Tasty Bingo Version 1: Letter Recognition

For this version of the game, you can use either of the game boards linked above. The perfect snack for playing a letter-recognition version of Tasty Bingo are the Scrabble Junior Edition Cheez-Its. I stumbled upon them during a recent trip to Walmart, and they were actually the very thing that inspired me to come up with this activity!

How to Play:

A list of possible questions:

• What letter makes the [insert name of letter here] sound?
• What letter does the word cat/dog/[insert other word here] start with?
• What letter does your name start with?
• What is the third letter of [insert word here]?
• What letter does the word [insert word here] end with?

Every time the answer to one of the questions happens to correspond with a cracker on his or her board, the child can eat the cracker from that square. The first player to uncover an entire row on his or her board makes a bingo and wins!

Fun Games

Tasty Bingo Version 2: Your Own Version

My son starts kindergarten this year, and I was given a list of sight words by his teacher that she would like all students to know prior to the beginning of the school year. In addition to brushing up on his skills using these words at great sites like Starfall, I wanted to create an interactive way for him master these words.

Using the blank version of the game board linked above and a wet erase marker, I can write one of these sight words in each square. Before beginning, each space (with the exception of the center star space) is covered with a treat. (This is a great way to let children indulge in sugary cereals you might be reticent to serve for breakfast!) To play, my son can use his reading skills to identify each word as I read them to him, uncovering spaces as he goes.

This version of the game can be tailored to your child’s needs and interests, with everything ranging from math concepts like addition/subtraction and multiplication tables to vocabulary word definitions. What a terrific way to make learning fun (and tasty!).

Now that we’ve had some edible fun, be sure to stay tuned next week when I’ll be sharing an activity to help your kiddos flex their scientific muscles! Please don’t hesitate to ask me any questions you might have, either in the comments here, or over at my blog.

Amy is mama to three small children (with another on the way!) and author of Positively Splendid, a haven of crafting and DIY inspiration, and a place where creative people of all skill levels can come and feel right at home. Because Amy likes to think of each tutorial as sitting down with friends to learn something new together, each and every project at Positively Splendid is explained to the last detail with step-by-step photo tutorials. Originally from the desert Southwest, Amy now resides outside Nashville, Tennessee.