Sunday School Games: Books of the Bible Bingo

If you are looking for a creative and fun way to help your Sunday school kids become more familiar with the books of the Bible, consider playing Books of the Bible bingo. Books of the Bible bingo requires very few supplies and is fairly inexpensive to make on your own. You'll find that kids of all ages love the fast pace of the game and yet it really does help kids learn the books of the Bible because of the repetitive nature of the game.

To start you'll need to create your Books of the Bible Bingo cards. Using a program like Microsoft Word, draw a table with four columns and four rows for a total of 16 squares. You could make your bingo card larger or even smaller if you are working with younger kids, but I've found that 16 squares works best.

Once you've drawn the table, you'll need to write a book of the Bible in each square. Repeat the process to create an assortment of Books of the Bible bingo cards. You will need to make enough for each kid in your Sunday School class to have one card. Always make a few extras for visitors and to replace lost or damaged cards.

If you would rather not create your own Books of the Bible bingo cards, try searching the internet for pre-made Books of the Bible bingo cards. Several websites have templates for Books of the Bible Bingo cards that you can download and print. Many of these Books of the Bible bingo cards are in color and some even include illustrations.

To prolong the life of your Books of the Bible bingo cards, you might consider laminating them using your church's laminator. If your church does not own a laminator, ask around to see if someone in your church owns one or perhaps has one at the place of work. As a last resort, you can take your Bible Book Bingo cards in to a copy place like Kinko's and get them laminated for a small fee.

Once you have your Books of the Bible bingo cards, you will need to make a set of cards with the books of the Bible written on them that you can use to call out the different books. You may already have a set of Books of the Bible flashcards that will work perfectly for this game. But if not, just use index cards and write the name of each book of the Bible on separate cards. You can also print out a list of all the books of the Bible and mark off the books as you call them out.

To play Books of the Bible bingo, follow the regular rules of bingo. You can vary the games by making it so they need four in a row, four corners, four squares in the middle or even a blackout game where they need to cover each square of the bingo card.

Use anything from pennies, beans, beads, etc. to cover the squares up but make sure you have enough for all the kids. For my class, pennies seem to work best. Just have a bottle of hand sanitizer available so kids can clean their hands off after the game is over.

Have small prizes ready to give to the winners of each Books of the Bible bingo game. I like to use things like a piece of hard candy, gummy worms or even small cookies. You can also have a prize box and throw things in like erasers, balloons, pencils, whistles, lollipops, etc that kids can choose a prize from. If you have a large class, you can have several winners for each game instead of the usual one.