In this chapter, we're going to explain the rules to Ice Breaker Bingo. Keep in mind that there are multiple versions out there, but that this one is our favorite.
Human Bingo (requires the subsequent bingo sheets photocopied and pens) Hand out 'bingo' sheets with get-to-know-you questions. Explain that they need to move around the room and try to fill each on their bingo sheet with a different person's name. When they have the whole sheet completed they should yell 'bingo!'. Did you scroll all this way to get facts about get to know you bingo? Well you're in luck, because here they come. There are 34 get to know you bingo for sale on Etsy, and they cost $6.62 on average. The most popular color? You guessed it: blue. Get To Know You Bingo is a great activity for September! Students will walk around and find classmates for each box. It will spark conversations and students will quickly realize how much they have in.
As an added bonus, we'll also include some downloadable cards that you can print off and use with your group of people.
A fun alternative to Ice Breaker Bingo is a game we built called QuizBreaker.
Thousands of teams around the world play QuizBreaker as a fun way to learn more about each other and bring their teams closer together.
People at organisations such NYTimes, Google & Coca Cola have reported how it's a really easy to run a team building activity.
Check out our hen party bingo selection for the very best in unique or custom, handmade pieces from our party games shops. Ensure you keep the laughter flowing and make it a night to remember as you and the girls do battle in our hilarious Hen Party Bingo game. Tick off each box as you master a variety of tasks to crown the Hen Party Bingo Queen! Prizes for the winners and forfeits for the losers. What Is Hen Party Bingo? Hen party bingo is much like normal bingo but with fewer of those mad looking marker pens and absolutely no shouts of ‘two fat ladies.88!'. However, it does have a bingo sheet and the aim of the game is to complete a line. Hen party bingo calls.
Getting to Know You Bingo works well as a VBS game or a youth group game. We run a separate Vacation Bible School for our students in 5th, 6th, and 7th grade. These middle school students are too old for the traditional VBS program we purchase, so we design our own program for these kids.
Click here to learn more about QuizBreaker and try if for free.
Top 5 betting apps app. If your team is working remotely at the moment then you should check out our guide on virtual team building activities and games for remote teams. In there you'll find 100 ideas with instructions that you can try with your newly remote team.
Chapters
Why We Love It
We can all admit, we love a game of bingo - even if it is for old people.
It's fun, engaging and can get competitive; and that's exactly why it's one of our favourite ice breaker games.
Furthermore, we adore people bingo (also known as the ‘autograph game' or ‘did you know?') because it is fun, easy to organise and even easier to teach.
Simply put, the objective of the game is for employee's to wander around the room and get signatures of people who have the facts listed on the bingo sheet - but we'll explain it in more detail in a second.
It might sound almost too simple, but being simple leaves nothing to be over complicated and allows employees to interact with each other without feeling any pressure. It's a great way to run an easy ice breaker game for the first day of your new team.
How To Set Up Ice Breaker Bingo
We got you covered and written step by step directions for you to follow for your next bingo game!
Step 1: Create bingo questions
If you know your employees reasonably well, make a list of 25 interesting things that you know describes different aspects of them.
For example 'lived in Sweden', 'Can speak two or more languages', 'plays the guitar' or 'has a red porsche' (alright for some, hey!).
If you don't know your employees at all, make a list of 25 general ice breaker questions. For instance, 'has brown hair' or 'works for the HR team'.
You can make your questions easy or difficult, depending on how long you want the game to last.
Step 2: Make a people bingo card
It is very easy to make your own people bingo cards.
You can either use a regular printer, or there are many places online where you can create customised people human bingo cards; which you can find further down the post.
Get To Know You Bingo Free
How To Play Ice Breaker Bingo
We recommend playing this team building activity with no more than 30 people. If in larger groups larger, divide your employees into small teams of equal sizes.
Step 1
Give each participant a bingo card, either homemade or found on the internet, and a pen
Step 2
Get To Know You Bingo Printable
Explain that the group has 30 minutes to mingle with each other. During this time, they should be introducing themselves to one and other and finding people who match the traits on the bingo card.
Step 3
Once they have found the person with the correct trait, they must put the person's name in the corresponding box, or have the person sign the appropriate square
Step 4
Just like a normal game of bingo, the clock continues to tick until the first person to fill five boxes across or down yells 'Bingo'.
Getting to Know You Bingo works well as a VBS game or a youth group game. We run a separate Vacation Bible School for our students in 5th, 6th, and 7th grade. These middle school students are too old for the traditional VBS program we purchase, so we design our own program for these kids.
Click here to learn more about QuizBreaker and try if for free.
Top 5 betting apps app. If your team is working remotely at the moment then you should check out our guide on virtual team building activities and games for remote teams. In there you'll find 100 ideas with instructions that you can try with your newly remote team.
Chapters
Why We Love It
We can all admit, we love a game of bingo - even if it is for old people.
It's fun, engaging and can get competitive; and that's exactly why it's one of our favourite ice breaker games.
Furthermore, we adore people bingo (also known as the ‘autograph game' or ‘did you know?') because it is fun, easy to organise and even easier to teach.
Simply put, the objective of the game is for employee's to wander around the room and get signatures of people who have the facts listed on the bingo sheet - but we'll explain it in more detail in a second.
It might sound almost too simple, but being simple leaves nothing to be over complicated and allows employees to interact with each other without feeling any pressure. It's a great way to run an easy ice breaker game for the first day of your new team.
How To Set Up Ice Breaker Bingo
We got you covered and written step by step directions for you to follow for your next bingo game!
Step 1: Create bingo questions
If you know your employees reasonably well, make a list of 25 interesting things that you know describes different aspects of them.
For example 'lived in Sweden', 'Can speak two or more languages', 'plays the guitar' or 'has a red porsche' (alright for some, hey!).
If you don't know your employees at all, make a list of 25 general ice breaker questions. For instance, 'has brown hair' or 'works for the HR team'.
You can make your questions easy or difficult, depending on how long you want the game to last.
Step 2: Make a people bingo card
It is very easy to make your own people bingo cards.
You can either use a regular printer, or there are many places online where you can create customised people human bingo cards; which you can find further down the post.
Get To Know You Bingo Free
How To Play Ice Breaker Bingo
We recommend playing this team building activity with no more than 30 people. If in larger groups larger, divide your employees into small teams of equal sizes.
Step 1
Give each participant a bingo card, either homemade or found on the internet, and a pen
Step 2
Get To Know You Bingo Printable
Explain that the group has 30 minutes to mingle with each other. During this time, they should be introducing themselves to one and other and finding people who match the traits on the bingo card.
Step 3
Once they have found the person with the correct trait, they must put the person's name in the corresponding box, or have the person sign the appropriate square
Step 4
Just like a normal game of bingo, the clock continues to tick until the first person to fill five boxes across or down yells 'Bingo'.
If you want the game to go on for a little longer, you could have multiple opportunities to win. For example, the first person to get a full horizontal line of words, the first to get a vertical line and then the first to get a full house.
To involve employees even more in the game, perhaps ask them at the beginning what they think a completed game should be.
Step 5
To make the game more exciting and motivating, have a prize (or prizes, if playing the longer game) ready to give the winners.
In our opinion, a bottle of nice wine will do but you could always offer gift vouchers.
How To Reflect
One way to reflect at the end is to ask participants to introduce themselves and share an interesting trait they learned about someone else.
You can also get your employees or school students to describe how they feel now that they know their peers a little bit better.
Handy Links
For a sample printable bingo card, you can download and modify this People-Bingo printable template. Unicorn bingo free printable.
You don't even need to put in an email address to download it, and their privacy policy says you can edit it as much as you like.
Alternatively, you can take QuizBreaker for a spin which is arguably even more fun than ice breaker bingo!
Frequently Asked Questions
- How to host a bingo event?
It is super easy, all you need to do is invite your friends or colleagues to play and be sure to have your bingo board and pen ready.
- What are some fun icebreaker questions?
We got you covered! Check-out our favorite icebreaker questions.
- What is the history of the game Bingo?
Bingo is traced back to 1530 and started off as an Italian lottery called 'Lo Giuoco del Lotto D'Italia' and still played every Saturday in Italy. In the United States Bingo was called 'beano'.
- Can you play bingo virtually?
Absolutley! You will need to start a video chat using your preffered video confercing platform. Make sure everyone in you team has a bingo card and a pen. From there it is just like playing a normal bingo game in person.
Conclusion
So there you have it!
Ice breaker bingo is a great option for a birthday party game or as part of some bridal shower games. We've even heard from some teachers who use it in special education & english language arts to produce interesting facts during free space in the day.
That's our tutorial on how to play the ice breaker bingo game with your group.
Looking for more activity ideas?
Check out our list of 32 awesome icebreaker games or 49 fun team building activities.
Some time ago, I was asked about a simple but efficient way of getting participants of a large event more comfortable with each other. Like the situation with colleagues that kind of know each other but not really. My proposal was not Loquiz. It was BINGO. Or 'Intro Bingo' or 'Peoples Bingo' or 'Get To Know You Bingo'. Here's how to run it.
In short, every participant gets a pen and bingo table. There is a specific statement in each cell of the table. The player's task is to find a person among the participants that would agree that the statement applies to her and sign the cell in your table.
Whoever gets the corners, cross and full table filled out first wins the respective game. You have to shout BINGO, of course.
What is the game really about?
The game is about getting to know each other. The statements act as conversation starters. There is probably not much time to have a long conversation during the game, but the magic happens after. You have some common points to start chatting about.
Now you might say that you will not remember every person in your table and that is correct. However, you will remember the claims, so the discussion usually goes more like: 'Did you find it easy to find the person who had done a parachute jump before?' 'Who did you sign up for being the longest in the company?' Etc.
What to do and what not to do?
Under no circumstances do not allow to add players own name to his table. If he is the only one who has ridden around the world on a motorcycle, then too bad ;). You are not allowed to write anything onto your table (see point 2).
Do not allow people to fill in their table with participants' names. It is not about knowing the facts. It is about getting another person to sign a specific cell in your table. That might mean striking a deal (you sign my 'parachute jump' and I sign your 'around the world with motorbike cell'). Talking somebody into it and interacting is an important part of the exercise.
If there are more people than bingo cells, consider enforcing a rule that one person can only sign one cell in anybody's table. If there are fewer people than cells, then you can limit it to no more than 2, for example.
As a judge, do not dismiss any signatures. It is not about checking if somebody who signed 'parachute jump' really jumped out of the plane. It is about the story. Extract that story. Maybe they wanted to do that, maybe they almost did it, etc.
How to run the game?
Here is the real secret. The bingo is a tool for you to run the intro session. Alternatively, you would be tossing the ball around in a circle and shouting names or something similar. So use it to the full. Here's how.
Start
Hand out the bingo sheet and a pen to everybody. Ask who does not know bingo. Explain that there are 3 games – corners, cross, and the full game. The player needs to get another person to sign the respective cell in their table. Whoever gets the corners, cross or full game first should shout BINGO and game is stopped to check the table and hand out the prize. Only then the game goes on. A player is not allowed to write anything onto their table. Nothing. Not his name nor anybody's names. Questions? Start!
Tip: Do the intro standing up. Shouting start does not work if people are sitting. Make them stand before you briefly and you get a faster start.
BINGO
When somebody shouts BINGO, stop the game. Ask everybody to gather around you and get the winners sheet. Corners are most probably filled up first. Do not rush this, this is what creates value.
You are 'checking' the answers, but you want to get the stories. So read out the statement and name and ask the person to elaborate when and what happened. Next, ask anybody to raise their hands who would have signed the box as well. Make sure that everybody sees the hands because players who are missing these boxes will be able to approach them right after. Go through all four claims this way and continue until another bingo. At next BINGO, don't check the corners anymore.
Size of the table
The BINGO table is usually 5×5 cells. 4 corners + 5 for cross + 16 for full game. Total of 25 claims.
Should you make it bigger for big groups?
Not really, if you make it 6×6 it will be 36 claims and this is more of a marathon than a sprint you want it to be.
Should you make the table smaller for small groups?
Maybe, or just allow for a person to sign each table twice. That said 4×4 works pretty well, especially for the feedback session. You have 4 corners + 4 for cross, plus 8 to get to a full game.
Sometimes with 5×5 at the end of the game, I skip some of the checks to keep up the speed. With 4×4 it is usually quite ok to go through all claims.
Should I create an occasion-specific table or use some kind of standard?
It depends. You should use claims that somehow apply to the group. You want to have claims that at least a couple of persons in a group can relate to. And as importantly, you should relate to these yourself. This will help you kickstart the checking sessions.
Also, if there is a specific need to direct the focus to somebody, then you can extract a couple of unique facts about her and add those, so they will surface in an event. And if somebody has done something cool in a group you know about, then this could be cool to add as well.
Where's the table?
Just google Peoples Bingo for samples and you will find plenty. Then make your changes.
