Game

This game is a version of the traditional game Battleships, which uses ordered pairs on a co-ordinate grid to specify position. Since the “treasure chests” are represented by multilink cubes, which have an area of 2 cm x 2 cm, students can think strategically about which co-ordinates (ordered pairs) to choose.
For example, finding out that B 2 is not a co-ordinate for a treasure chest effectively eliminates the co-ordinates A 1, A 2, and B 1. If E 2 also is not a co-ordinate for a chest, that effectively eliminates C 1, C 2, D 1, D 2, and E 1. Note that this strategy is good for locating the approximate position of treasure chests, but to finish the game, students must give all four corner co-ordinates of each chest.
An interesting variation of the game is for students to use 16 unit place-value cubes to make four “gold nuggets”. These nuggets can take any shape the player wants them to within the squares.
For example:

Answers to Activity

Game
A game using co-ordinates