Activate: Games for Learning American English

Game 3: Word Category Bingo

Word Category Bingo is similar to Game 2: Brick Bingo, but it focuses on only one type of
word. Instead of players filling their cards with their choice of words from the complete
Word Bricks collection, players must select all of one type of word. For example, in Prepo-
sition Bingo, players find prepositions in the Word Bricks collection and put only preposi-
tions on their Bingo cards. The choice of word category can make the game more or less
challenging. Possible word categories include:

Basic Word Categories More Challenging Word Categories

• nouns • countable nouns
• verbs • non-countable nouns
• adjectives and adverbs • irregular plural nouns
• articles and pronouns • irregular past tense verbs
• prepositions • intransitive verbs
• words of three letters or • abstract words
fewer • words that can be both nouns
and verbs

Instructions
1. Have students (the players) work individually or in small groups (2–3 students) to
make a 3 x 3 Bingo chart. (See more detailed directions in Brick Bingo step 1.)

2. Place piles of Word Bricks in several locations around the room so that a small group
of players can look through the Word Bricks easily.

3. Tell players what word category to find and place on their Bingo cards. You may want
to show some example bricks, particularly for the more challenging word categories.

4. After players/teams have found the correct number of Word Bricks, play Bingo follow-
ing steps 2–7 in Brick Bingo.

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