Buzz
I enjoy slipping little notes into my child's lunch, but the typical “I love you, have a great day” starts to feel repetitive. For my youngest, I mix it up with cheesy jokes. But for my 11-year-old, I’ve found the perfect solution: a pencil-and-paper Battleship game.
If you’ve ever enjoyed the iconic tabletop version of Battleship, you’re familiar with the process: place your little ships on a grid, while your opponent does the same on their own grid, hidden from view. Then, take turns calling out coordinates, aiming to sink each other's ships. “J-10!” you call. “Miss!” they reply. You track hits and misses on a separate grid. The goal is to sink all their ships before they sink yours.
Converting Battleship to paper is simple, as that’s how the game was originally played. The first commercially available versions were just paper pads with grids printed on them. You’d mark your ships with pencil, and then take turns calling coordinates. You can use this same setup to include a Battleship game in your child’s lunchbox or play it on paper anytime.
Instructions for Playing Battleship with Paper and Pencil
For the classic two-player format, each player will need two 10 x 10 grids. You can either print them or draw them yourself on paper. Label the columns with numbers 1 to 10, and the rows with letters A to J. This will help you identify each square by its letter and number. For example, the top left square is A-1, and the bottom right square is J-10.
Now, on one of the grids, place your ships. The setup used in the official physical game by Hasbro includes the following (but feel free to adjust it to your liking, as long as both players are aware of the ships they are trying to sink):
Aircraft carrier: 5 squares
Battleship: 4 squares
Cruiser: 3 squares
Submarine: 3 squares (yes, two ships of this size)
Destroyer: 2 squares
You can position your ships anywhere on the grid, either horizontally or vertically (no diagonal placements). Lightly shade the squares in pencil to mark the positions of your ships.
The second grid is for tracking your opponent’s ships. You’ll take turns trying to hit each other. Here’s how each round works:
You announce a coordinate (for example, “B-9”).
Your opponent tells you whether it’s a hit or a miss.
You record it on your second grid (I prefer to use a dot for a miss, and an X for a hit). It’s important to track both hits and misses, as even the misses will give you clues about where the ships are.
Then, it’s their turn! They call out a coordinate.
You check your ships and tell them if it’s a hit or miss.
Mark the hits on your own ships so you can let your opponent know when they’ve sunk one. (There’s no need to track their misses.)
When all squares of a ship have been hit, you announce “You sank my...” and name the ship. For instance, after the battleship is hit four times, you can say the famous words, “You sank my battleship!”
How to play a one-player version of Battleship on paper (via lunch notes)
For my son, we only play the part of the game where he can “win.” I keep the ships hidden, and he guesses coordinates. (You could use two grids, like above, but we found this simpler.)
On an index card, I drew a small grid and let him guess three coordinates each day. On the back of the card, I listed the five ships, so I could cross them off when he sinks one.
For my side of the game, I captured a screenshot of a Battleship grid, and then used the Instagram stories tool to sketch the positions of my five ships (though any drawing tool in an image program would work).
Each morning, I pull up the image on my phone and check the three guesses from the card. I mark misses with dots and hits with X’s on the paper grid (and use a highlighter for the X’s if I have one nearby). I then let him know whether each guess was a hit or miss. So far, he’s sunk two of my ships and tells me he eagerly looks forward to the game every day.
