Domino War

Countdown supermarkets in NZ recently had a promotion. For every $20 spent they would give you one 'free' collectible domino. So I put the word out to friends and family. I put it in my class newsletter, on Facebook, everywhere I could think... I would trade handmade goods for dominoes. Due to the generosity of my friends and family I had a surprisingly large collection of dominoes by the end of the promotion. So now I am putting together some Math resources for my classroom that use dominoes as the main material.

I am sure that I have come across the idea of Domino War somewhere in the wilds of the internet, but when I went to print it out for my classroom, do you think I could find a source? No way Jose.

Tried and tested, this game is much loved by my year 2 students at the moment. The craze of the promotion may be contributing, but they are enjoying this relatively fast paced game. The idea is quite simple. First, turn all the dominoes so that the dots are facing down...

Then each player turns over a domino and adds the numbers together, e.g. 1 +6= 7...

The player with the highest answer is the winner of that round and keeps the dominoes. Keep on playing till all the dominoes are turned over. The overall winner is the person with the most dominoes at the end.

Here are the printable instructions that I have taped onto the outside of the bag. Please download the file from my drive (rather than use this image), as it contains the credits for the clip art etc. Enjoy!