February 22, 2022 is a date palindrome. What are palindromes, and what can you do with them? Working with palindromic can be a fun way for you and your child to expand your spelling and vocabulary skills, and number palindromes can help with number sense and calculation. We’ll, give you some examples and provide you with some fun activities to do with palindromes!

What are Palindromes?

A palindrome is a word, phrase, or series of numbers that is the same forwards and backwards. February 22, 2022 is a palindrome because the date abbreviation 2-22-22 is the same forwards and backwards. 

Some other palindromic numbers are:

• 1991
• 434
• 101
• 12321

Some examples of palindromic words are:

• dad
• noon
• radar
• civic
• kayak
• wow

Some phrases and sentences with palindromes are:

• Taco cat
• Evil olive
• Mr. Owl ate my metal worm 
• A nut for a jar of tuna
• Step on no pets

Palindromes can be a fun way to play with words and come up with silly sentences or phrases. They can also improve literacy skills by increasing vocabulary and knowledge of word parts. 

Activities with Palindromes

Now that you know what palindromes are, it’s time to have a little fun! Here are some of our favorite activities to do with palindromes: 

• Make your own palindrome word search. We love this free word search creator from Discovery Education! 
• Write a story or poem using as many palindromes as you can. For an extra challenge, or for older children, see if you can write a whole phrase or sentence as a palindrome! 
• Read some silly books featuring palindromes. Some of our favorites are Too Hot to Hoot and Go Hang a Salami! I’m a Lasagna Hog!
• To explore palindromic numbers, try this cool trick: when you add palindromic numbers together, you’ll get a sum that is a palindrome. Take 56+65. The sum is 121, which is a palindrome! . 
• Research palindromic dates in history and make a timeline of them. See if there is a pattern to how often they occur. While you’re researching, you can add important events that happened on each of these dates. 
• For a super challenge, find a list of palindromic phrases or sentences and see if you can perform a whole skit or conversation using nothing but palindromes. It will get silly quickly, so have fun with this! 
• Come up with some palindromic words and give clues to see if your partner can guess the word. Try this one: 
  • Q: What palindrome is something a baby wears while eating? 
  • A: bib

Talking Points

Now that you have some activities in mind, use these talking points to get your child excited about playing with palindromic words and numbers! 

• “I’m a vehicle. I’m spelled the same whether you read me forwards or backwards. What am I? (a “race car”) Let’s see what other palindrome riddles we can come up with to ask each other!”
• “11+11=22. 33+33=66. When you add a palindromic number to a palindromic number, you eventually get another palindromic number! Let’s see if we can come up with some more examples like this!”
• “10/02/2001 was a palindromic date. Two cool things happened on this date: Baseball player Sammy Sosa was the first major league player to score 60 home runs in just 3 seasons, and it’s also World Farm Animal Day! What other palindromic dates can you think of? Let’s make a timeline with some fun events that happened on each of these dates!”