Dominoes - Game

Normal Dominoes

• All the dominoes should be placed upside-down (dot side down) and mixed up

• Every player draws 7 dominoes (or 5 if too many people for 7)

• The extras go in a pile to the side of the playing area

• Players will look at the dominoes they have drawn and the one who has the highest double or highest domino (the must dots) goes first by playing any domino they want from their hand

• Other players take their turns, each one playing a domino that matches end-to-end (1-1, 2-2, 3-3, etc) with any other open domino already on the board

• If a player does not have a domino they can play they can draw one from the pile.

• The game ends when no players can play anymore dominoes or when you run out of dominoes

• If desired, the game can be scored:

  • younger children may struggle with this math, but older players can help them while explaining what they are doing and how they are doing it

  • scoring can be done in a variety of ways but the easiest way may be to add all of the dots on the dominoes that people have left and the person with the least amount of dots wins

Chicken Foot

• All the dominoes should be placed upside-down (dot side down) and mixed up

• Every player draws the same number of dominoes and will look at the ones they have drawn

• The extra dominoes are placed in a ‘chicken pen’ (pile on the side of playing area)

• A fun way to incorporate more math would be to have the children figure out how many dominoes each player can have using addition and division

• The game starts when the player with double 9 places that domino in center of table

• If no player draws a double 9, players take turns drawing until it is found

  • The following rounds start with double 8, double, 7 all the way down to double 0; 10 rounds

• Play continues as players take turns (go clockwise from the person who started) laying their dominoes continuing to connect them

  • Dominoes still need to match end-to-end (1-1, 2-2, 3-3, etc)

  • If a double is played it needs to be laid perpendicular to previous domino

  • Three dominoes can be played off of a perpendicular one

    • This looks like a chicken foot

• Can play 4 or 6 off of central double domino

• Can use guide or just lay the dominoes free (see below)

• Play ends when all players have played their last domino or no plays can be made

• If scoring:

  • Each player adds all the dots left in their hand at the end of each round (double zeroes can be scored as 20)

  • Player with lowest score at end of all 10 rounds wins

• or

  • When the first person to play their last domino has played it, all the other players tally the points they have in their hand at that time to see who wins. This is then repeated every round.

  • Player with the least number of dots win

These games cover the following mathematical concepts:

• Subitizing (the ability to identify the quantity of a set just by looking at it)

• Addition

• Counting