Extending the Graph BINGO Review Game

Today during Saturday tutoring, I played my Graph BINGO Review Game with an entirely new set of students. These were 9th and 10th graders, none of whom were my students, and they enjoyed the game and learned as much as my students had a few weeks ago.

While I was preparing I had an idea for an extension. I erased all of the graphs and created a blank bingo card with plenty of space in each box. I thought that if the game didn't last very long, I could ask students to create their own bingo card and call sheet with various types of graphs. Then we could copy the best one and play a brand new game as a whole group.

Since we reviewed slope, intercepts and graphing linear equations, it would make sense to adapt this game for solely this objective. Indeed, you could replace the different types of graphs with specific sets: linear functions, quadratics, or linear inequalities for example. Instead of using verbal descriptions for the call sheet, you could gear it more towards the connections they will have to make to answer various word problems. For example, if you were doing linear functions, your clues could be:

• equations in slope-intercept form
• a slope and y-intercept
• x and y intercepts
• only slopes (or only y-intercepts)
• equations in standard and non-standard form
• non-functions (x = 3 for example)
  

You could also practice negative statements, the kind they love to frustrate students with on standardized tests, like "which graph does NOT have a positive y-intercept?"

The problem with any game or activity like this, of course, is that you can't keep using it again and again. The novelty of any good idea wears off quickly. In fact, bingo will probably be retired for the rest of the school year, only to rise again triumphantly for 2008-2009.