Teaching area to my students this week and they needed a little speaking and listening activity to go with it. Any chance I have to get my students up and moving or working in a group… I’m there! I also really wanted my students to focus on using the correct math vocabulary. “Area, square units, sets, rows, columns, groups, repeated addition, multiplication…, etc.”

I thought of my of my favorite games to play with my little brother growing up… Battleship! I have seen it done before for corridance but never area. So my brain got to thinking. If I have the students a simple half sheet of graph or grid paper and two dice, I would be able to have them create shapes (battleships) using area. And then also be able to ask them to identify the area in each of their ships.

I explained to them that they must use correct vocabulary in order to sink their partners ship. I also said, “No peeking.” So I created little blinders for inbetween them. After their ships were made (I had them create 8) then the battle began. They added the blinder in between them and started to roll their dice again.

“Do you have a ship with the area of 10 square units?”

“No, you missed. (Other partner rolls dice) Do you have a ship with the area of 12 square units?”

“Yes, hit! I knew the area of my battleship was 12 because I knew that two rows of 6 is 12. I used repeated addition to solve my problem.”

The student would then cross off the sunken ship.

So much fun!!! Let me know how you play in your classroom!