Dominoes is such a fun and popular game with children! These DIY Pop Stick Shape Dominoes Games is a resource I have made for my classroom to use part of my geometry (shapes) program. It is something that is fun, motivating and a great way for children to consolidate their learning in small independent group activities.
Playing with the Shape Dominoes encourages children to sort, match, name each two dimensional shape and become familiar their attributes, such as a circle is round or a square has four sides, a triangle has 3 corners.
What you will need?
You will need large pop sticks, assorted shape buttons and a hot glue gun.
- Place all the pop sticks out in a row.
- Sort the buttons into pairs and place one button from the pair onto one pop stick and the other matching button onto another pop stick end. Continue this until all the buttons are laid out on each pop stick, forming a matching pattern sequence.
- Carefully place a small amount of hot glue onto the end of the pop stick and gently press the button on top.
- Repeat this until all the buttons are glued on.
Let’s Play
Some Ideas:
- Find the matching shape buttons and place the ends together so that the matching buttons are touching. Continue this sequence until all buttons have been matched.
- Children can be creative and place the domino pop sticks into whatever patter they like. The dominoes in the above picture placed at random but the photo below shows a swirling pattern.
- Go on a treasure hunt around the house, classroom or other environment searching for real-life objects that rectangular, circular, triangular or square shaped.
- Read stories about shapes or watch educational videos about shapes on YouTube.
Let’s Learn
Learning Opportunities
- Fine Motor Development
- Hand-Eye Coordination and Control
- Spatial awareness – experimenting with shape and space
- Language development – name familiar two dimensional shapes.
- Mathematics – Sorting and matching shapes
- Creativity and imaginative play
- Problem solving and self-correcting
- Geometry: make connections with basics shapes and objects in the environment, such as the classroom door is a rectangle.
Click here for more SHAPES activities & play ideas
