In this lesson students will be demonstrating their knowledge of the coordinate grid system by playing Coordinate Grid Battleship with a partner. In this activity students will be able to practice identifying and plotting points in the first quadrant of the coordinate grid system.
To begin I show the students a video of a Hasbro commercial from the 1960’s. I then tell the students of my experience as a kid playing this game and ask them if they have ever played it. I open up the class for a quick group discussion about their experiences with Battleship.
The Battleship game is an activity that I found on the Illuminations website. I have included a copy of the directions. Basically students will be creating their own battleship board and playing with a partner. Each student needs a piece of graph paper and colored pencils.
I read the directions to the students while displaying them on the document camera. As the students begin setting up their battleship boards I circulate the room and check to make sure they set up the axes correctly on their graph paper.
To wrap up this activity I have students think about strategies they used while playing this game. I ask them to have a quick conversation with their neighbor about their strategies then I have them write their responses in their math journal. I ask them to write a letter to someone who has not played the game before and offer them strategies for the activity. I have a few students share their written responses.