A couple years ago, I was doing my student teaching and was not able to be involved much in my children’s homeschooling. I had to simplify every subject considerably so that they could do it on their own. This history bingo was the greatest success of the whole experiment. Each week I would pick a topic (or 2 or 3 to choose from) and then set my kids loose. They would learn about the topic by reading about it or watching YouTube videos (I would help with this part) and then they would have to use the History Bingo board to demonstrate that they learned something. Looking back 2 years later at all that they created, wrote, drew, and recorded, it’s like I have my own little time capsule of their personalities at this moment in time.
I was reading an article recently about artificial intelligence that was talking about how if you start the creation process using AI, then the end results produced by a group of test subjects all ended up pretty similar. The conclusion was that while AI can be useful to polish up your finished project, children should still be relying on their own brains in the initial stages of any project to get the most creative result possible. My kids did not use AI at all in this project two years ago and their creativity shines through. Even though all four kids had the same topic each week, what they produced was always dramatically different. I am planning to repeat this History Bingo in the Fall and I’ll have to give some thought as to whether or not I want them to use AI and at what stage, since they are now more familiar with using it as a learning tool.
Basically, the way this works is that each week kids learn about a topic in history and then create a project based on the Bingo Board. When I did this the first time while I was doing my student teaching, the whole process was very freeform. I created a list of topic related to American History (available in my Patreon membership) and then (roughly) each week they chose a topic to focus on from a list of 3 or so. We would typically watch YouTube videos or a documentary as a family in the evening one night after I got home from my student teaching, then they would have the rest of the week to dive deeper on their own, if they wanted to, and then produce something. The History Bingo board was primarily meant to be inspiration. They could use the word on the Bingo space to create their own idea, or by clicking on the word, they would be taken to a page with a list of ideas I came up with.
Each time they got Bingo, they would get to choose from a list of “prizes” such as being the one to choose the movie on family movie night, or the next flavor of ice cream we bought, or a game to play, or 15 extra minutes of video game time. This worked pretty well at first, but towards the end of the year, they were frequently filling in squares that resulted in double and sometimes triple bingos, so be prepared for that. There are 36 weeks of the school year and only 24 squares, so if you wanted, you could let kids repeat projects. If I’m being honest, my kids only completed 24 projects in the school year, but I was pretty happy with that. There were weeks when “producing work” got away from us, and other weeks when they wanted to continue what they were working on from the previous week. They learned something different each week, but didn’t always produce something to show it. Overall, I am happy with the amount of work they did though!
What pleased me the most was the way that each kid could play to their strengths. Two of my kids, my youngest and my oldest, REALLY enjoyed creating videos. My youngest couldn’t write yet when we did this, so it made sense that recording himself talking or acting out scripts was easier for him. My daughter on the other hand choose to include a lot of writing each week. She was creative in the type of writing she did (stories, fictional letters, to-do lists, how-to articles, advertisements, etc.), but most of her projects were mainly typing. My middle son loves art and often found a way to turn his Bingo quest into something artistic, like a painting, scupture, comic strip, or even Minecraft world. I would make him write a little something to go with it describing what he made, but he did not rely much on words.
Recommended Age Range: Kindergarten, Elementary, Middle School
Time Required: Varies, but probably averages about 1 hour per week, not including learning/research time.
Difficulty: As easy or as hard as your kiddo wants!
Cost: Free
I am going to provide the History Bingo Board in two different formats. Either way, I recommend printing the first page with the actual board so that your kids can keep it at the front of a binder all year. You may want to keep this as a physical portfolio and add their projects or pictures of their projects to the binder. (Honestly, we did a digital portfolio using a free Google Site for each kid. I don’t have permission to share my kids’ sites, but maybe I’ll create a tutorial in the fall when we start over for the coming school year!)
Option 1: Printable PDF Document
Access your printable your History Bingo document here
Option 2: Editable Google Doc – I am including this option, because I want you to be able to modify it to suit your own family’s needs. However, please don’t use this for commercial purposes! If other families or teachers would like to use it, please direct them to this post.
Make a copy of the History Bingo Google Doc
In order to make a copy, you’ll want to select “File”, then “Make a copy,” then “Entire Presentation.” This will save it to your own Google Drive where you can edit is as you wish.
This is the general procedure I used:
- First we would learn about something. When I did this a couple years ago, I spent a bit of effort choosing American History topics for each week. (That full list of topics is available in my Patreon membership, but here is a preview.)
This coming year, I believe I will use Curiosity Chronicles Ancient History and read a chapter each week. The kids can continue learning about the same topic on their own using YouTube videos or other books if they want and as appropriate depending on their age. - Have them choose a square in the History Bingo Board game. They can use the word written in the box as their own inspiration, or if you click on the word, it will take you to a separate page in the document with some ideas that I came up with. For example:
- The child then spends about an hour or so working on their project using as much creativity as they can!
- When the child gets a bingo, celebrate!
Happy creative history learning!
Related Links
History Activities for Kids
Social Science Activities for Kids
Learning Activities for Kids
Michelle has a PhD in Engineering from Stanford University and a Bachelor's Degree from the California Institute of Technology. 
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