Play Battleship with a Hundreds Chart

Teachers are always coming up with fun ways to use Battleship in the classroom for teaching different concepts. My teen recently made a Battleship game in Google Sheets for her computing class, which used conditional formatting so when you guessed a square it would change color if there was a ship there. So clever!

In the past we have shared a Battleship game you can play with the periodic table (which is just so clever) and using sight words (adorable!) and while this is a new one to me it makes total sense and is super easy to set up.

123 Homeschool 4 Me shared the idea of using a hundreds chart to play Battleship. If you aren’t familiar with them, a hundreds chart is just a 10 square by 10 square chart that lists the numbers from 1 to 100. If you are familiar with a hundreds chart, you know it’s a grid, so it is the perfect choice for using in a game like Battleship.

This is a two player game, like the original, and you can decide how many ships each child has and their size depending on their age and level of patience. Having more and bigger ships probably makes sense for younger players so they won’t get frustrated when they don’t get a lot of hits. You can do variations based on using the actual numbers or coordinates based on the number’s position on the chart, how many ships and their sizes, etc.

It’s a great game for little kids first learning to count to 100, but I think older kids could enjoy this version, too. It’s great to have on hand because it doesn’t take any set up at all and it’s easy to explain to kids how it works.

You can find all the details plus a printable hundreds chart you can use for your own Battleship games and other learning at 123 Homeschool 4 Me.

[Photo: 123 Homeschool 4 Me]

Learning numbers actually involves a few different skills, from recognizing the shape of the number and knowing the word that goes with it to understanding one to one correspondence for counting and what order the numbers go in.

A lot of this is learned best through play and activities that get kids counting and tracing and otherwise interacting with numbers. These activities can help.

I specifically mentioned tracing above because of these number formation rhymes cards from Teaching Mama, which can be used in lots of ways to practice making the shapes of the numbers, including tracing, lining up items on the number shapes (and counting them!), using playdough to shape the numbers and so on. Each number has a little rhyme to help you remember how to make it, which is cute.

And speaking of playdough, you can find lots of playdough number mats with different themes for kids to use as they learn about numbers. Preschool Play and Learn, for example, has these cute apple themed ones that also teach one to one correspondence as you learn the numbers and count to 10.

Or use these tree-themed ones from Live Over Cs to form the numbers, count out items on a ten frame and place the correct number of items in the tree to match the number (do this with playdough, little buttons or whatever manipulatives you have on hand). Your little builders will also love these Duplo number mats from Life Over Cs, which allow you to shape the number out of blocks and count out the number of blocks that corresponds to each number.

I also love these mats from The Savvy Sparrow that include the number and the word you can trace with playdough or marker, showing how to count the number on your fingers, a tens frame and a number line.

Finger plays and counting songs are lots of fun for little ones, too, and Childhood 101 has a great collection of songs and rhymes having to do with numbers (as well as printable song cards you can use with them.

This cardboard roll number chain form Hands On As We Grow would be a fun addition to singing number songs or to use in other play and counting games. And we all love something easy to make with stuff we already have.

Older kids who already know the order of numbers can also use these connect the dot number printables from Fun Learning for Kids. Or use the shapes for playdough mats or to practice tracing even for kids who don’t know all the numbers in order yet.

Have you read?

Leave a Reply