Jesse Tree Bingo
I don’t know why, but every time I’ve taught, I’ve discovered there are certain games that no matter how you play the game, it’s popular. Case in point, bingo, I’ve played bingo with students from high school to kindergarten. Everyone loves to play it. I love bingo because it’s a great way to get kids excited and paying attention. So, when I was looking for different ways to use my Jesse Tree ornaments, I thought, “Jesse Tree Bingo! That would be a great way to use it and make a great Bible lesson for Advent.”
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Why Jesse Tree bingo?
When I was writing my Bible curriculum I was writing for elementary age with ideas of how to adapt it for younger kids. That means some of the lessons I created work great with my 2-4 grade class. They’re the perfect age to start digging into some of those more boring Bible passages.
However, those same lessons don’t work so well for preschoolers. This is where Jesse Tree Bingo plays well with my Advent lessons for little kids.
The first week is Jesus’ family tree, which when I taught it with 2-4 grade, we did a Jeopardy game that is great if your kids know how to read and already know a bit about the Bible. Not so great if you’ve got little kids that won’t concentrate for a long time.
That’s where the Jesse Tree bingo comes into play.
This is great for a pre-reader, and for getting kids involved who don’t want to sit still for an hour.
Jesse Tree bingo supplies
Jesse Tree ornaments (I’m linking to the November 28 for 2021 when I’m writing this), Blank bingo cards (I’m putting this on my subscriber page in a little bit, sign up for my newsletter), paper to print it all on, scissors, glue stick
Putting together the Jesse Tree bingo
Since this comes as just a block of pictures, you’re obviously going to start by cutting out each image (confession, this particular picture is from another project of Shrinky Dink paper, you’ll see that one next week).
I ended up stacking a couple of rows together to cut them out a little faster, that did mean the pictures weren’t always perfectly cut out, but let’s be honest, it won’t really matter all that much.
Of course, you can cut them out ahead of time, I also think they’re just about the right size if you have a 1-inch circle punch you could use that. I didn’t dig mine out to check and see, but it looks to be about the same size.
In the Bingo printable I included a 3, 4, or 5 column bingo, obviously, the size of the board influences how long the game runs. My sample is made using a 5 column bingo.
One thing I like about letting the kids make the bingo cards, they can’t complain you gave them a bad card because they designed their own bingo card.
And it can be a great way to fill time if you need a time-killer. If you’re short on time, throw on a movie and make as many bingo cards as you need as you watch it.
And of course, you can decide to make it disposable, or use a few dozen markers. Think how popular you’d be if you used Hershey kisses for the markers…
You wouldn’t be so popular with the parents though.
When you play bingo, how do you play? Any straight line wins? Blackout? Cross-out (both diagonals)?
More Advent Christmas Story fun
- Gentle Advent
- Christmas minute to win it game
- Wandering Wisemen
- Christmas in Russia
- How did we get a Christmas tree (Saint Boniface)
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