Once the game is complete, ask students to sit in a circle, look at their cards, and choose a piece of information from the card to share about themselves. After ten minutes, see how many students have bingo or, better yet, have filled their cards entirely. Emphasize that they can’t use the same person to mark off multiple squares. They can mark that square off, help that student mark one of their squares off, and proceed to another student.

Instruct them to walk around the classroom, introduce themselves, and find a peer who meets the criteria of one square on the card. Print this bingo card and give one to each student. Use these to welcome your students to your classroom, and help them feel seen, heard, and excited for what’s to come.Įveryone loves bingo, right? This version of the game will get students talking about what, when, and who they read with. So, in honor of my 22-year-old self, here are some ELA icebreakers I wish I had back at the beginning of my career. While teachers are generally excellent at learning from their mistakes, we’re often not as good at forgiving ourselves and moving on. The class had already divided itself into “the readers” and “the non-readers.” Not exactly what I was going for when hoping to cultivate a classroom that nurtured and celebrated reading. When I heard this, I quickly amended the go-round to include movies and video games, but, to some extent, the damage was done. But others admitted that they hadn’t read a word all summer long. Namely, I didn’t put enough thought into my opening-day icebreaker, thinking we would each just share a book we had enjoyed over the summer.įor some students, this was fine. When I was a first-year English teacher, I made a typical rookie mistake with my ninth-graders.

Get to know you bingo high school