Descartes sank my battleship? Well, not exactly. But, the Cartesian coordinate system is very useful for so many things. Children get a sense of the game from the Battleship game. Milton Bradley used a simplified approach with letters along one axis and numbers along the other.
For teaching mathematics to students a full Cartesian coordinate system including an origin and positive and negative numbers is useful. The great thing is, students are intrinsically motivated to learn the coordinate system in order to play the game.
Read the full article about Cartesian Battleship, and download the free templates to transform your own game.