Playing domino will help your kid develop spatial awareness and recognise colours in a fun way. It will also improve their fine motor ability and hand-eye coordination.
After the tiles are shuffled, each player draws one domino from the stock. The player with the highest drawn domino makes the first play.
Rules
In most domino games each player draws seven dominoes and places them on the table in a row. They then discard any remaining unseen tiles. The first player to get rid of all their dominoes wins the game. The value of a domino is determined by the number of spots on its ends. A traditional set has one unique piece for each possible combination of two ends with zero to six spots, allowing 28 distinct pieces in a double-six set. However, some extended sets introduce additional pips on the ends to allow more combinations.
The first player is determined by shuffling the dominoes and drawing a tile, usually the highest double. The players then take turns placing their dominoes in the line of play, joining them to matching ends. When a player cannot play his or her dominoes, they draw from the boneyard until they have a match. When a player wins the round, they count the total number of spots on their opponents’ dominoes in their hands and add that to their score.
Materials
Dominoes are made of a variety of materials. Some of these include plastics, metals and stones. They also come in different sizes and shapes. Some are molded from clay while others are carved from wood and other materials. Today, dominoes are mass produced and can be found in a wide range of prices. In the past, the sets were often crafted from wood or bone.
Some of these were carved by prisoners-of-war to make money. Other sets were made of tagua nut, which resembles ivory and is softer than it. These types of dominoes are referred to as high-end dominoes and may command hefty price tags.
A domino is a flat, thumb-sized rectangular block, typically twice as long as it is wide, with one or more sides bearing from one to six spots or dots. A complete set of dominoes contains 28 such pieces. Depending on the game, they are sometimes referred to as bones, cards, men, or pieces.
Variations
There are a number of variations of the game of domino. The most common is the Draw game. This requires a double-six set and is played by two or more players. The 28 tiles are shuffled to form a stock or boneyard and each player draws seven dominoes to start the hand.
The dominoes are then arranged in a 4 X 7 grid face down. Each turn a player flips over two of the dominoes in their grid. If the numbers on the two dominoes add up to 12 the player must play them. Otherwise the player “knocks” or raps the table and play passes to the next player.
Normally the players count the value of their remaining dominoes and the person with the lowest total wins the hand and earns points (1 point per pip). However, some variants allow for additional scoring. This may be based on the number of points left in opponents hands or the sum of all the dots on their tiles.
Scoring
Dominoes have a variety of different scoring systems. Most are blocking games where the object is to empty one’s hand while preventing opponents from playing. Some games, such as bergen and muggins, count the number of pips in opposing players’ hands to determine score.
Each domino has two ends that display a value, normally six pips but sometimes none or blank. The value of each end is added to the player’s score if the domino is exposed. A double-blank counted as zero points, while a domino with two exposed ends counts as eight points.
When a player has played all of his or her tiles and the boneyard is empty, the round ends. The player who has the lowest total of points wins the game. The winner subtracts the value of his or her opponents’ dominoes from each opponent’s total, then adds to that number a value rounded up to a multiple of five. The winner then announces his or her score.