With what’s been going on lately in the world, a huge amount of kids are now being homeschooled. And, naturally, a lot of parents are going to find this a challenge; suddenly they’re required to be a teacher, and the chances are they’re not well versed in every single subject. But a mom who has always homeschooled her kids came up with a really cool way to teach chemistry by fusing it with the game Battleship.
Using the Periodic Table of Elements as the board, the kids will draw where they want their ships (following the ship sizes from the original Battleship game), and they use a duplicate board for the enemy territory and where they’ve landed hits and misses. Karyn Tripp, the mom who though up the game, wrote down letters vertically along the grid, as the Periodic Table already has numbers across the element columns, so it worked very naturally. Each “board” has two laminated copies of the Periodic Table that are kept in a folder that can be unfolded and clipped to the opponent’s board. The lamination allows them to play as many games as they like.
Tripp came up with the idea because her family loved playing Battleship all the time. She wanted to find a fun way for the kids to be able to learn or memorize the elements, and while studying up on chemistry with them, she put the two together. Once she crafted the game boards, her kids immediately loved the game. Her oldest son even became a huge fan of chemistry after this.
Tripp was apparently not the first person to think of this idea, but she was definitely thinking along the right path for sure, since it seems to be working. So, for parents out there who may be struggling with some subjects to teach, this game might help out a lot when it comes to chemistry.
Tripp has a lot of other learning games on her website, Teach Beside Me. Each one would be great to try out with your kids, especially now.
