Antonym Dominoes – Word Level Hard

Looking for some more difficult vocabulary practice for your older students? This dominoes game is a fun way to get them a lot of practice with 10 harder antonym pairs. The game rules are included below, but you can let your students match up pairs in a non-competitive way as well. The goal is for them to have fun while they’re matching and learning opposite words. There are two printable files that include the word dominoes, blank dominoes for customizing, and a word list for the antonym pairs. The words on the dominoes for each file are the same, but one set of dominoes has numbers on it to make pair matching a bit easier.

What to do:

1. Print the pages of dominoes on white cardstock and cut apart.
2. To make them harder to read through, glue them onto another color of cardstock (like black) and cut apart.

How to play:

1. First go through the antonyms with your students to familiarize them with the words.
2. Put the dominoes upside-down on the table in front of your students.
3. If you have 4 students playing, have them each draw 8 dominoes. For smaller groups have the students pick more cards (e.g., 10) and for larger groups, have them pick fewer.
4. Pick one of the remaining dominoes, turn it over, and place it in the middle of the table face up. Say the two words on it and their opposites.
5. The first student to play, looks at his dominoes for a piece with an antonym for one of the words on the first piece. If there is one, he plays it, placing the two antonyms together and saying the antonym pair. If not, he draws a new domino from the pile and adds it to his hand.
6. In turns, the students match antonyms to the cards on the ends of the domino chains and say the words or pick from the pile.
7. If they have a domino with an antonym pair on it (noted with a star), they can play it at a 90 degree angle to the chain, creating two more ends that cards can be matched to.
8. The player who plays all of the dominoes in his hand first, wins!

Related Materials:

• Antonym Dominoes – Word Level Easy
• Antonyms (Opposite Day is January 25th)