- x-axis, y-axis
- x and y coordinates, points, ordered pair
- quadrants
- origin
I was determined to fix the problems and make "Battleship" work for my classroom. The first thing I did was change the game to a whole-class activity: teacher vs. students, sink "The Sir" before he sinks you.
Each student had a graphic organizer with directions, a table for coordinates fired at me and fired at them, and a coordinate plane to keep track of their ships. On the whiteboard I had the plane where everyone could keep track of when they hit or missed "the Sir". After labeling parts of the graph (x and y axes, origin and quadrants), the rest of the game remained the same. The slightly tweaked lesson design allowed me to make sure the objective was covered thoroughly because I could come back to the key points easily:
- With each shot made, I could ask students to identify the quadrant or axis where the point was located.
- I could also give them multiple options for the location by pointing at my coordinate plane to check that they understand how to read ordered pairs, i.e. knowing the difference between (-2, 3) vs. (3, -2) vs. (2, -3)
- I focused on points on the x-axis and y-axis, which the students always mix up.
- I was able to give hints to check their understanding, i.e. "One of my ships is located along the y-axis" or "I have a ship in Quadrant II" and then see if the next student fired at the right area.
- I also connected the game to graphing linear equations by having my aircraft carrier located along the line y=x (a parent function), discussing how to figure out where that line would be and then aiming at points along it.
- more linear equations
- domain and range
- linear inequalities (identifying points that satisfy a linear inequality is a common question on our state standardized math test, like #51 on this released test)
- transformations
- quadratic and absolute value equations
If you decide to use this lesson, I recommend you change the domain and range of the graph -4 to 4 instead of -5 to 5. The latter was a bit too big and made it take a little longer than necessary for us to sink each other's ships. You could also adapt this to return to the student vs. student format, but I think you then miss out on the possibilities I wrote about above.
It also helps to look the part; I wore a $7 captain's hat from the local costume shop and taped "CAPTAIN" on my school ID. You could also cue up some video or audio clips of torpedoes firing and ships exploding for dramatic effect. Have fun with it--then your students will too!
UPDATE: Check out the revised 2008 edition of this game!