You don’t have to spend a ton of money on learning tools and manipulatives. You can repurpose items you already have at home, and let your child learn with them. Learning through play is so much fun, and your kid may not even realize they are learning.
Here are seven ways to turn dominoes into an educational adventure. These activities are a lot of fun, but they also help your child work on specific skills.
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1. Make Repeating Patterns
Like tile on the floor or walls, dominoes can be used to create repeating patterns. My kids enjoy trying to build a pattern using all of the dominoes in the set.
One of my daughters likes making patterns that’d look good in the kitchen or bathroom. She likes to play interior designer, and this is a fun way to make her designs come to life. She rotates the tiles just so to make sure they look great.
This activity will help your child visually represent patterns. They can start with something simple, and then move onto more complex patterns. It’s also a good way for them to use their creativity.
2. Build a “Train”
When we play with dominoes following the rules for Mexican Train, we always try to build our own trains before we start each round. That way we have the dominoes set up like we want them and can see which ones will be harder to get rid of.
My kids took this concept and tried it on their own. They decided to see if they could make a train connecting all of the dominoes in the set.
To start, they pick a double. Then they put a tile that matches on one side. The next tile matches the other side of the second tile. They keep going, trying to use all of them.
While doing this activity, your child will be critically thinking. They may need to switch tiles around if they realize their current path isn’t working. They’ll also be matching numbers.
3. Build Houses
Dominoes are great building tiles, except they fall down easily. You have to be really careful not to bump your build. This is great for fine motor skill practice!
My kids enjoy getting out a collection of small toy animals, and building homes for all of them. When quiet time is over, they give me the grand tour of their accomplishments.
Here are some things I’ve challenged them to build in the past:
- A “double-decker” (two-story)
- One big enough for all the animals
- A barn with a fence around it
- A house or barn with walls inside
While building houses, your child will get to practice their engineering skills. They’ll have to think about balance, and how to keep their home from falling over. They’ll also learn how to deal with disappointment and develop perseverance if their home does fall down.
4. Knock ‘Em Down
This classic dominoes activity is harder than it first appears! You have to carefully set up the tiles so they’re close enough to knock each other down as they fall, but not so close that they’re touching and you knock them down first.
It’s a challenge that takes patience, planning, persistence, and fine motor skills. Once my child is ready for the knockdown part, I like to whip out my cell phone and record a quick video. They enjoy watching their efforts again and again without having to rebuild.
And they always get ideas based on what their siblings have done.
While your child works on this activity, they really get to use their spatial sense. They have to visualize how far apart the dominoes can be before they won’t hit at the right angle. They get to experiment with different turns and see what is the most effective.
5. Sort the Dominoes
Dominoes are perfect for sorting! Your child can sort them several different ways. By looking at just one side of the tile, they can be sorted by:
- Color
- Number
By taking both sides into account your child can sort by:
- Sums
- Differences
- Products
- Which side is biggest
- Color combination
If you have multiple domino sets that look different from each other, you can also bring them both out and then sort by set. This activity really helps your child learn to pay attention to detail. They also get to practice math skills such as color and number identification, or addition and subtraction. There’s a lot to learn with this one.
6. Practice Addition and Subtraction
Dominoes are more fun than flashcards! Just have your child select a tile and quickly add or subtract the dots. Then they can say the sum or difference.
They could find all the tiles that add up to a sum of ten. Or the ones that subtract for a difference of two.
They’ll be practicing their math, but it won’t feel like as much work since it’s fun.
It’s a great way to help your child master the basic skills.
7. Practice Multiplication
My ten-year old is busy memorizing multiplication facts. Dominoes are a fun way to practice.
First, she gets out all the dominoes with a particular number. Let’s say two for this example. So any domino that has a two on one side gets put in one pile.
Then, she turns those all over, dot side down.
Now it’s time for practice. She flips a tile over, and sees what numbers are being multiplied (2 times however many dots are on the other side.) Then, she says what the product is.
The goal is to do all of the dominoes in a minute. That’ll mean there is a mastery and the multiplication facts are being instantly recalled. Then we switch to another base number.
After a single number is easy, try mixing a couple of numbers together (so all the twos and all the threes for instance.) Then we also increase the time.
You can also have two kids work together on this, and see who can get the most. They can take turns flipping and answering. As they play, they’ll be working on those essential multiplication facts.
Bonus: Build Letters and Words
Dominoes aren’t just for math. You can use them creativity to play several other games. For instance, my preschooler is practicing letter identification. I like to set him up with the dominoes, and have him build each letter. He places each domino flat on the table, and puts some together to make each shape.
The letters with curves take a little bit of work, but they eventually look close enough like a blocky version.
Have your child build A-Z and then try again with lower case letters.
Older children can build words. Their name is a fun one to start with!
Your child will get to work on spatial sense, letter identification, and spelling as they build words and letters.
Do Your Kids Play with Dominoes Too?
Do your kids use dominoes to play or supplement their learning? If you have any other ideas, I’d love for you to share in the comments below.
If you need some dominoes, here are a couple of recommendations. This first set is colorful and you can also use it to play Mexican Train, which is one of my family’s favorites.
This set is built with kids in mind. The large dominoes are easy to handle, and the colors are fun.
This post was originally published in May of 2018. It’s been updated and refreshed.