Christmas Carol Bingo

Here’s a fun way to help children (and adults!) listen to the words in traditional carols.

I did this with my children at home after finding out which traditional carols would be used at our carol service. There were some they knew, but others they were less familiar with. To make the service more accessible, fun and meaningful for them, I made a playlist of the carols using both traditional versions and more modern versions where the words were easier to hear. We then listened to the playlist with bingo cards, marking the words as we heard them. One child did this separately for each carol, while the other did it progressively for the whole list.

We didn’t really have a winner – it was just a fun way to listen and spot the words, and therefore think a bit about the words in the songs and what they mean. For example, we talked about ‘David’s city’ which cropped up a few times, discussed which city this was and why it might be called that in the carol. We also chatted about the word ‘Bethlehem’ and how that’s from two Hebrew words, Bet, meaning home or house, and Lechem, meaning bread. So, yes, the Bread of Life was born in the town called House of Bread.

Happy playing and chatting!

NB This product is a download pdf which you can download after the checkout, and there are two sheets, the second sheet having fewer and simpler words, aimed at younger children or people less familiar with Christmas carols or the Christian faith.