Learning Through Games Coordinates and Strategy Skills
Debbie Lewis - Education Consultant
and specialist in the use of technology
across the Creative Curriculum
Everyone must remember the great games they used to play with pencil
and paper like Battleships, Noughts and Crosses and Dots but did you realise
that they could now be really helpful in creating an understanding of coding
and programming?
Battleships - Players: Two
Description
Players take turns in trying to guess the
Each player draws two 10 x 10 grids, labelled along the sides with letters and numbers, these
locations of the other player's ships on a
can be changed to numbers only coordinates as confidence increases. On the left-hand grid
grid. This requires knowledge of coordinates
the player secretly draws rectangles representing their fleet of ships:
in a single plane but also the development
of flexible strategy skills where given and
changing information can be related to on
going situations.
MY GRID
The Fleet
Play
Each player’s fleet consists of the
During play the players take turns is making
following ships:
a shot at the opponent, by calling out the
1 x Aircraft carrier - 5 squares
1 x Battleship - 4 squares
1 x Cruiser - 3 squares
2 x Destroyers - 2 squares each
2 x Submarines - 1 square each
Each ship occupies a number of adjacent
squares on the grid, horizontally or vertically.
Again, changes can be made to the game to
include diagonals; it just depends upon the
level of the players.
coordinates of a square (e.g. D5). The
MY GRID
opponent responds with "hit" if it hits a ship
or "miss" if it misses. If the player has hit the
last remaining square of a ship the opponent
must announce the name of the ship; e.g.
"You sank my battleship".
During play each player should record their
opponent's shots on the left-hand grid, and
their shots on the right-hand grid as
"X" for a hit and "O" for a miss.
The first player to lose all their ships
12
HITS & MISSES
loses the game.
HITS &
MISSES