Critical Thinking BINGO: Free Summer Game for Teens
by Dr. Julie Martin, EdD
We made a BINGO card. A real one. Print it, grab a marker, and play it with your kids this summer.
Summertime Critical Thinking BINGO is a free, printable download from The Critical Thinking Lab, built specifically for critical thinking for teens and tweens. Every square is a real observation your teen makes in their actual life: watching a commercial, scrolling past a health claim on social media, reading a food label, spotting a misleading headline.
A few favorites from the card:
Find sneaky ad language: "up to," "may help," "as many as." Find a statistic in the news. Ask: compared to what? Since when? Write down one thing you believe strongly. Ask: what would change my mind?
Each one is drawn from moments already happening in your adolescent's day, just with the awareness turned up.
The Skills Underneath the Game
Each square is built around a specific skill: evaluating sources, identifying bias, catching logical fallacies, distinguishing facts from opinions, examining the evidence behind claims. The kind of thinking that matters in school, on social media, in conversations, in real life.
If you've ever wondered how to spark curiosity in students without turning it into a lesson, this is a pretty good answer. The game meets kids where they already are. Watching trailers, reading labels, scrolling feeds. It just asks them to look a little more closely at what's actually there.
Research is clear that critical thinking activities for grades 6-12 stick when they happen in low-stakes, authentic contexts. A summer BINGO card is about as low-stakes as it gets. The game makes the practice feel like something other than practice.
And the conversations are the point. When your teen completes a square, ask them to explain their reasoning, not just report what they found. "How do you know?" is the most powerful question you can model. Use it yourself.
Celebrate "I'm not sure" as a genuinely smart answer. Uncertainty is the beginning of good thinking.
Ways to Play
Two cards are included (Card A and Card B), so siblings or friends can each have their own.
BINGO Sprint. First to complete a row wins a family-chosen prize.
Blackout Challenge. Complete the whole card before school starts.
Family Discussion Mode. One square per week at dinner, together.
Sibling Competition. Different cards, same summer. Who finishes first?
The FREE space is already earned. You're raising a thinker.
Go Get It
Summertime Critical Thinking BINGO is a free download from the Critical Thinking Lab. Print one card per player and you're ready. It works for critical thinking for middle school students all the way through high school, and honestly, parents end up playing along too. Just sign up to our newsletter and get access to BINGO!
