Playing Dominoes

We’ve been doing a good job of playing board games over the past few months. We get outside a lot, but as it was hot outside, we needed activities inside as well that help keep the kids engaged, and not driving us totally crazy. I recently wrote about some of the board games that we’ve been playing, and dominoes is just an extension of that same concept.

I actually got a solid set of dominoes for my birthday when I was about 18 years old. I have no idea why I even wanted them as I don’t think I knew any domino games at the time, but they looked really cool, and so I asked for them. Nearly 20 years later, and those dominoes feel like new despite the fact that we’ve played with them hundreds of times.

There are really two main games that we play with dominoes, and both of them are excellent for playing with kids. Make sure you buy a good set of dominoes as it makes playing a lot more fun.

Stand dominoes to fall over

Basically anyone who has had dominoes has set them up in a row in order to knock the first one over and watch the rest fall over after it. There are some insane videos online that show huge domino setups with thousands of dominoes in them. Your domino knock down will likely be a bit more modest than those.

This is a fun activity to do with kids for a couple of reasons. First off, it teachers your kids a bit of patience and coordination. Putting one domino in place after another requires patience to get them all stacked up, and at the end is a nice reward of watching them all fall over. It also requires a bit of coordination so as to not knock down the other dominoes you’ve already set up.

Second, standing dominoes up to knock down will help your child build some creativity. They’ve got to think about how they want the dominoes to fall, and in what order. A straight line will likely be the starting point, but once they’ve learned to curve the dominoes, there’s no saying what they’ll think up.

Play single train or multi-train dominoes

There are a lot of different games that you can play with dominoes, but the simplest are games where you build “trains” with the dominoes. This is basically where you just play dominoes that match one after another until all of your dominoes are gone.

The basic rules in both versions of the game are the same. Each player gets a set number of dominoes to start (we usually start with 8 each for 4 players). You then place the lowest (or highest) double domino in the center of the table from the dominoes that you’ve turned over for each player. From there, you take turns playing one domino each by matching the end of one of your dominoes to the end of another domino on the board. When you don’t have a domino you can play (as you have none that match), you pick another domino from those not in play, and then the next player goes.

The big difference between the two games is where you can play your dominoes. If the single train style, there is only one train of dominoes going. You place all dominoes end to end and only play along the one train (you can play on either end of the train). The multi-train variant allows more than one train to form. Off of every double domino, you can form two trains, rather than just one. This allows for multiple trains to form, and the game to potentially end much faster.

Both variants are fun, with the single train version a bit easier for younger children as there are less places to place a domino. Both versions are excellent for teaching children about numbers and counting as they have to look at each domino and see how many dots are on each end. It will also require them to match those ends.

Conclusion

Dominoes is a fun game to play with family and friends, and a great way to teach your children some basic matching and counting skills.