State Capitals Bingo Cards

One theme for teaching citizenship is the  Fifty Great States theme.  State capitals bingo would be a fun game or gathering activity to go with this theme.  You can play this game with states or capitals on the bingo cards or the call cards. You can choose which combination of bingo cards and call cards you would like to use.

For a pack meeting, you could let the younger Cub Scouts have cards have states, for example, but give the Webelos cards with capitals and use the state call cards for the whole group. That would make it a little more challenging for the older Scouts.

State Capitals Bingo Cards

Printables

Instructions

1. Cut the call cards apart
2. Give each player one of the bingo cards.
3. Distribute daubers or some other way to mark the cards. If you use something like pennies or small pieces of candy as markers you can reuse the cards.
4. Place the call cards in a paper bag.
5. Randomly pull a call card from the bag and say the name of the state or capital on the card.
6. If the player has the matching state or capital on his card, he marks it.
7. Continue drawing call cards and having the players mark their cards.
8. When a player has a whole row covered (across, down, or diagonal) she yells BINGO!
9. Check the player’s card against the states or capitals which has been named so far. If he really has a full row covered, he wins that round.
10. Continue playing rounds until you are out of time.

Other popular variations are Four Corners (cover the four corner spaces) and Cover All (cover every space on the card).