Prologue

of the ruler, starting from the first mark on the ruler and not the edge of the ruler, unless the zero is at the edge.

Lesson Instructions

This game can have two or three players per group, or whatever you can figure out. I always say that the point of a game is to have fun, don’t leave that out! In this version, each player draws a bow-tie fighter and an X-style fighter. The bow ties align in one row, and the X-style in another. Equal size centers for both styles of ship are drawn around a pencil eraser.

Players extend the direction the last part of their line was headed in, with a ruler. The “laser” becomes a line segment if it collides with a ship, or continues as a ray into infinite space if it does not intersect with anything.

Players measure the length of any “shots” that intersect with other ships. The length of these segments are added together for the score. Rounding to the nearest half was used for this game, which can be a nuance for differentiation.

For this game, each of the “wings” had a laser to shoot from, and if it was struck, that weapon was considered disabled. An additional point was added for a center hit, which destroyed the ship entirely.

Materials

• ruler

Lesson Duration

1 hour

Placement

This should come at the end of the first semester or beginning of the second semester.

Tags

• addition
• decimals
• math
• measurement
• rounding
• using a ruler

Categories

• Addition
• Geometry
• Math

Standards

• Common Core Math

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Other/Alternative Standard(s)

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