Mom Puts an Educational Twist on “Battleship” to Help Kids Learn the Periodic Table

Board games and the Periodic Table seem like unlikely partners in learning, but as writer and mom Karyn Tripp has shown, the two can have more in common than you might think. Tripp, the creator of homeschooling education site Teach Beside Me, paired Battleship with the table of chemical elements. Using the basic format of the classic game, she has turned it into a fun teaching tool that anyone can play.

Teach Beside Me features simple instructions for making your own Periodic Table Battleship. To start, print out four copies of the table, laminate them, and secure them to folders with jumbo-sized paper clips. Position two of the Periodic Tables standing upright and lay the others down, with each row labeled alphabetically. Grab some erasable markers and you're ready to play.

The game follows the basic rules of conventional Battleship. Establish your “battleships” by circling rows of two, three, four, or five elements on the lower table. Afterwards, begin calling out coordinates–mark any misses with an “X” and hits with a circle. To learn more about Tripp's game, check out the post on her website.

Karyn Tripp: Website | Facebook | Pinterest
via [Laughing Squid]

Sara Barnes

Sara Barnes is a Staff Editor at My Modern Met, Manager of My Modern Met Store, and co-host of the My Modern Met Top Artist Podcast. As an illustrator and writer living in Seattle, she chronicles illustration, embroidery, and beyond through her blog Brown Paper Bag and Instagram @brwnpaperbag. She wrote a book about embroidery artist Sarah K. Benning titled 'Embroidered Life' that was published by Chronicle Books in 2019. Sara is a graduate of the Maryland Institute College of Art. She earned her BFA in Illustration in 2008 and MFA in Illustration Practice in 2013.
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