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Team Foundation News

Dominoes!

The Foundation children are having lots of fun using dominoes to support their learning in Mathematics. If you have a set of dominoes, below are some activities that you might like to play at home to build on your child’s learning.  

 

The Game of Dominoes 

Children have been taught how to play the game of dominoes and are very much  enjoying playing the game with a variety of their peers. Through the game of dominoes, children are learning to follow a sequence of instructions, subitise small collections of objects and compare, order and make correspondences between collections. Furthermore, they are learning to take turns, follow the rules and work collaboratively with their peers. 

 

How to play:

  • Play in a group of 2-3
  • Put the dominoes face down on the table and mix them up.
  • Each player turns over a domino and counts or adds the total dots - the player with the largest total goes first. 
  • Each player takes 6 dominos; for a game with more than 3 players, each player should draw 3 dominos. 
  • The remaining dominoes are left on the table (these are the "sleeping" dominoes). 
  • The first player places one of their dominoes (right-side up) on the table. 
  • The second player tries to put a domino on the table that matches one side of what's already there. If a player cannot go, the player picks a domino from the pile and skips that turn.
  • The chain of the played dominoes develops randomly and can look a lot like a snake.
  • Continue taking turns putting dominoes on the board (or picking one from the pile if you cannot go) until someone wins. In regular dominoes, the best strategy is to get rid of doubles first.
  • The winner is the first person to get rid of all of their dominoes. But if no one can go out, then the person with the fewest dominos left is the winner.

 

Domino Battle

To support children’s understanding of addition, our Maths warm up game over the last two weeks has been Domino Battle. This has been a fun, engaging and hands-on activity that the children love. 

 

Set up:

Each pair will need access to a selection of dominoes (face down) and counters

 

How to play

1. Paper, scissors, rock to decide who goes first

2. Player A flips over a domino and places it faces up in front of them

3. Player B flips over a domino and places it faces up in front of them

4. Players need to add up the number of dots on their domino (some children might count all the dots; some children will count on from the larger number and some children will use their know addition facts to add the numbers together)

5. The player with the largest number is the winner of that round - they collect a counter

6. The winner of the game is the player with the highest number of counters at the end

 

An added challenge would be for children to turn two dominoes over at a time and to add up the total number of dots on both dominoes.

 

 

 

Domino Addition Facts 

 

To hook students into this task, we read the picture story book 12 Ways to Get to 11 written by Eve Merriam and illustrated by Bernie Karlin. 

 

The Task:

Children write a number in the middle of a mini whiteboard or piece of paper. They place dominoes around the number that total their chosen number. Children repeat, exploring a variety of numbers. Questions explored during this task were:

  • So, which side of the domino would you start counting from to get the total?
  • How did you figure out how many that domino added to/equalled? (are children subitising and/or counting on from the larger number)
  • As the totals get larger, what do you notice about the number of combinations that equal them?
  • If I flip that domino, does it still make…?

To make this task more challenging, some children made their central number larger and created their own dominoes out of paper that equalled their chosen number.

Echi Echidna Adventures

In Week 7 Rihati took Echi on many adventures. Their first adventure was visiting a park that had so many fun rides! Rihati took Echi on the Flying Fox. It was so fast and exciting! Echi then went on the swing and Rihati helped Echi to climb up a tall wall! Rihati you are so brave! Rihati and her sister then performed a magic show for Echi. I hope you didn't make Echi disappear! Next Rihati and Echi ate delicious waffles, met Rihati's grandparents who wanted to take Echi home with them, went on a bike ride and went shopping to buy some healthy vegetables and fruit! Rihati also took Echi to a special Chinmaya Mission class and learnt all about Indian Mythology! I'm glad you could share your culture with Echi! The last exciting adventure was to visit a carnival. There were so many wonderful things to see and do. Echi and Rihati went on teacup and car rides, they ate ice-cream and got their face painted. The final adventure was watching scary fire juggling! What an exciting activity to share with Echi! Thank you so much Rihati for looking after Echi, sharing your life with him and sharing your adventures with your class!  

 

 

 

 

At the beginning of Week 8 Oscar shared his fun adventures with Echi. To begin his adventures Oscar took Echi home and played lovely music to him on the piano. Echi loved listening to the song, 'Twinkle, Twinkle little Star.' Oscar played so well and Echi felt right at home. Oscar then took Echi to his local park. They went on the swings and spun on the spinning top. I hope you didn't feel too dizzy Echi! Oscar then took Echi home and showed him his favourite toy, a blue campervan truck! Echi was very impressed with this toy and loved hearing Oscar tell him stories about why he loved playing with cars so much. The last adventure that they had together was eating yummy chips on the coach. Delicious! Thank you so much Oscar for sharing this fun week with your classmates! It was lovely to hear all the exciting things you did with Echi!

 

 

 

We look forward to hearing more Echi adventures in the future! You're such a lucky echidna Echi!

 

Team Foundation Teacher

Kirstin Jones