Battleships is a great game for teaching students about using co-ordiantes and understanding chance and data.
Give each player a pencil and printout the gameboard which we got from funorama.com The top grid is for your own fleet ("My Ships") and the bottom grid is where you try to locate the other player's fleet ("Their Ships").
First you decide where to place your own fleet within your grid. A fleet is made up of one Aircraft Carrier, one Battleship, one Cruiser, two Destroyers and two Submarines. Each type of ship covers a different number of boxes in the grid, as shown on the print-out, and is drawn vertically or horizontally (not diagonally). Ships cannot occupy the same square.
To place a ship, check how many boxes are covered by the ship (shown to the left of your grid) and then write the first letter of the name of the ship in the boxes it covers. For example, a Cruiser covers three boxes so you would pick any three adjacent boxes and put the letter C in each box. Keep your fleet location secret from your oponent! When each player has marked their fleet on their grid, begin play.
Take turns to “shoot” at your opponents’ fleet by calling out the number of a certain box by its grid location. For example, you could call out "B4" or "D1". Your opponent must say whether the shot is a "miss" or a "hit", and, if it is a "hit", what type of ship it is. You can keep track of what you have shot on your lower grid, and the ships you have sunk by crossing off the ships at the bottom right of your print-out.
Play continues until one player wins by successfully sinking the whole of the other player's fleet.