Skip-Counting Bingo was originally created by James Russo and Toby Russo.

You can find a link to the paper it appears in below. 

About this game: The game is for 2 to 5 players and we love how it brings important counting and addition practice, and interaction with a 120 chart.

While this game involves skip-counting by any multiple from 1 to 6, you don’t have to be fluent in all of these to play the game. 

During the launch (in Term 3 of a Year 1/2 class), we discussed what it means to skip-count and ways to check carefully for skip-counting accuracy. We set a norm of precision over speed.

This game was one we came back to multiple times. Students shared it with friends and families.

What you need to play: 

• Here's a printable 60 chart
• Here's a printable 120 chart board

Day One

How we played this game:

Where possible, students played in groups of 3.

1. On a 120-chart, each player chose and covered three Bingo numbers in with their coloured counters. At first, we didn't limit students to numbers past 20 (these are the rules that Russo & Russo suggest). We added this as a rule later on in the session.

2. Anyone can roll on a turn. In this class, most groups had players taking turns to roll. On each roll, the group skip-counted by that number starting at zero.

3. Players stop counting when they land on one of the Bingo numbers. We liked saying  “when you encounter a counter…” that counter (or Bingo number) is removed from the 120-chart and returned to its owner.

4. The winner is the first to claim back all three of their counters. The remaining two players can decide whether to draw second/last or whether to keep playing to place 2nd and 3rd/last.

What we noticed as a class:

👀  Certain numbers have better bingo odds than other numbers.

👀 We think we found a Bingo number that is divisible by all numbers on a 6-sided dice! Some of us are certain about this while others of us want to test it out...

👀 It seems like there will be many variations on this game! 

Day Two

As a warm up, we experimented with a 60-chart variation to see if it might be easier to find some winning strategies. We could then level back up to the 120-chart version later. 

Students became expert enough at this game to ‘play it forward’ to a neighboring class when they visited for a combined class Maths Play Party. They also taught it to family members at an open classroom event.

Explore further: James and Toby Russo explain share Skip-Counting Bingo, along with two other ‘educationally-rich games’, in this research paper.