Raise your hand if you grew up playing with dominoes
?! Back then you just thought they were something fun to play with, but your parents were onto something. Dominoes are fun little tiles that can be used to teach, and your child will have fun learning! They may not even KNOW they are learning! Here I’ll show you how to use dominoes to help your little one’s learn.
First, you’re going to need some dominoes. They are cheap on Amazon and you can save yourself a trip to the game aisle with children in tow! They have quite the selection, too!
5 Ways to Use Dominoes for Learning
#1. Math Skills
Dominoes are an excellent tool to use for math. You can even base the math lesson off the age of your child. Use the dots on the dominoes to help your child to add or subtract. This is also a great lesson for those who are just starting out with learning how to count. There are several math games you can create using dominoes. You can get creative on your own; ask your children to help create a math game, or even Google a few new games to play on a weekly basis.
#2. Spelling Skills
This might be a new one for you, however, you can teach spelling through dominoes. We use sight word dominoes
, but you can also use mini post-it notes
to modify your standard dominoes. This works best with new sight words that your child is trying to learn. Use the dominoes to spell out the different words on your sight word list. This is fun because there are always tons of dominoes within a package! Make sure you are challenging your child with this and not making it too easy for them. It’s okay for mom and dad to get involved in the spelling fun too.
#3. Matching Game
One of our favorite games to use with dominoes is the “matching game.” You have to find which dominoes are exactly alike. This can be actually quite tough because dominoes can be tricky with all of those dots. I love this game because it challenges those who are young and old alike.
#4. Tracing
Most preschool kids love to pretend they are drawing. A fun game that I’ve created using dominoes includes tracing dominoes on construction paper
. Dominoes make the perfect rectangle for drawing. Have an older child? Make it a little challenge where to see who can build the most elaborate house on paper using dominoes. The key is to trace the blocks and make a cool house design. The whole family will love the challenge and the kids get to work on their hand-eye coordination as they do it.
#5. Building
There’s nothing more educational than building. You can teach your children so much through building with dominoes. Building with dominoes helps to increase your child’s motor skills, which is something that will carry them through the rest of their life. Building with dominoes allows your child to move their fingers and hands. Their ability to grasp those dominoes and build them is a natural phenomenon happening in their own bodies and you get to help develop that. As you help your child with building, you can also help to develop their language skills and social skills.
Finding new ways to teach your child can truly be fun. Dominoes are a very inexpensive way to teach your children many different valuable lessons. Standard dominoes
are relatively inexpensive. Of course, you can also up the ante by playing a game of chicken foot dominoes
< it’s so much fun!
Mexican Train & Chickenfoot Combo
