Did you know that next summer Battleship is coming to your local theater?  Yes, a full length feature based on the beloved game by Hasbro.  Crazy.

What is likely to be a much more productive and fun-filled afternoon is one spent with a kiddo, a couple of pencils and a few sheets of “Sink a Ship”.

This game is reminiscent of the board game Battleship, but is tailored for speech, requires less equipment and less time.

To begin, you create a grid of 6-8 squares across, 6-8 squares running up/down.  Across the top, write a target word over each square.  Now write a different target word next to each square running down the left side of the page.  Make another copy of this board—you are ready to play.

Place a barrier between you and the child.  Each of you now needs to decide where to “hide” your ship.  My students and I usually hide one ship that covers four squares either horizontally or vertically (with some students we might add a three square ship as well or allow diagonal play)  I find it easiest to indicate the ship with four open circles.

Time to guess!  Alternate guessing the location of the other person’s ship by “bombing” a coordinate (i.e. “lip-look”).   If you miss, mark that square with an X.  If it’s a “hit” mark a star.  When a section of your ship is hit, fill in the appropriate circle.  (I also like to add some sound effects).  The board below shows my board with two “miss” guesses (lock-like and leaf-like), one hit (lip-look) and one hit on my opponent’s ship (lid-late).

If the child is ready for articulation practice at the phrase level, it’s easy enough to add a carrier phrase, “I guess (target) and (target)” or “(target) down and (target) across”.  Or come up with a phrase that increases your number of productions:  “Look at ‘lid’ and ‘laugh’.”

**”Sink a Ship” sheets are available in Artic Attack and other R Games and Artic Attack and other S/Z Games.    Look for Artic Attack for Early and Later Developing Sounds this winter.