Synonym Dominoes

Here’s another game to play with your students to get them a lot of practice with synonym pairs. The synonym dominoes are divided by level (from easy to difficult) and correspond to the other materials available for each level (see links below). You can have your students play competitively as explained below, or you can just let your students match up pairs in a non-competitive way. The goal is for them to have fun while they’re matching and learning synonyms.

There are two printable files for each level that include the word dominoes, blank dominoes for customizing, and a word list for the synonym pairs. Each leveled set uses the same words, but one set of the 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 synonyms 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 synonyms.
5. The first student to play, looks at his dominoes for a piece with an synonym for one of the words on the first piece. If there is one, he plays it, placing the two synonyms together and saying the synonym pair. If not, he draws a new domino from the pile and adds it to his hand.
6. In turns, the students match synonyms 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 synonym 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:

• Level 1 Synonyms
• Level 2 Synonyms
• Level 3 Synonyms