Bingo – Skip Counting
Math Concepts
Skip Counting
Materials:
100 Chart (optional), 3 color tokens for each player, die
Players
2-6
Set up
Each player picks three numbers between 20 and 120. They can either do this picking in turns so that no number is chosen by two players, or you can allow a number to be chosen by more than one player. If you have a chart handy, put the tokens on the chosen numbers. If not, write the chosen numbers for all the players in order, and put the tokens by the numbers.
Play
On a turn, the die is rolled and this determines the number that the skip counting will be done by on this turn. The skip counting starts at 0 and ends when the first token is encountered. When one or more tokens are encountered, all those tokens are taken off the board and given back to the players.
Goal
The first player to remove all their tokens from the board wins.
Discussion and Tips
Discuss which numbers are the best ones to choose. There is a big advantage to choosing numbers with lots of divisors, but which combination of divisors is best? There is also an advantage to choosing smaller numbers. What is the tradeoff between choosing small numbers versus ones with a large number of divisors?
How do these considerations change if numbers can be chosen between 10 and 120? How about 5 and 120?
How do the strategies change if a different range of random numbers is used?
Variations
You can insist no number is chosen by more than one player, or you can allow multiple players to choose the same number.
You can change the range of numbers to choose from to be something other than 20 to 120.
You can start the skip counting at some number other than 0 so that the skip counting practice is varied.
Replace the die with another method for choosing random numbers. Use playing cards from 1 to 10 instead, or whatever range of numbers you want to practice. Another option is to use a die with a different number of sides.
