About this game

Turn the domino around

Turn the domino around: a free Pre-K math game for ages 4-5. Each round draws 5 questions; instructions are read aloud and every answer is checked and explained.

How it plays and why it helps

Spin a domino on the kitchen table and ask whether it changed. Plenty of four-year-olds will count it again to be sure. Turn the domino around is a Pre-K game about that doubt. The sentence, read aloud, names the two halves in one order, 4 dots and 2 dots, while the picture shows them the other way round. Your child taps the number of dots in all, from four choices, five times a round. Every answer is checked and explained: 2 and 4, or 4 and 2, it is still 6 dots.

The idea is that the order of two parts does not change the whole. Later it will be called the commutative property of addition. Here it is just a domino, turned. A child who knows it can trust a count already made.

Among the choices sits the number of dots on a single half, such as 4. It is easy to stop there. Cover one half, then the other, and ask, "How many on both sides together?" When the total comes out right, say what happened: "You counted the whole domino."

Aligned with

  • P-MATH 1 Child knows number names and the count sequence.
  • P-MATH 5 Child associates a quantity with written numerals up to 5 and begins to write numbers.
  • P-MATH 2 Child recognizes the number of objects in a small set.

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