A - Battleship

Compiled by: Debbie Gardner

Divide the gym in half. Tie a rope to the volleyball poles and hang sheets or blankets so that people on one side can't see those on the other. Divide into 2 teams, and have the "ships" (kids) position themselves on the floor, either sitting or laying (big & small ships/targets). Once in position, no one can move. The game begins when a youth leader reads a question from the scriptures. The first person to answer correctly gets 5 chances to throw missiles (tennis balls) at the other team (enemy). He can throw them all himself, or give them to others on his team to throw. He throws the balls over the top of the sheets and tries to hit the "ships" on the other side. If you are hit, you are sunk, and must sit out the rest of the game. The team that sinks 5 enemy ships first, wins. No one can answer 2 questions in a row. You can play as many rounds as you want. (Battleship Questions)

Contributed by: Sherra

I got this from a old seminary game book that is used with scripture mastery questions. Of course you can use any questions you would like. I have used this in FHE also...the kids love it. I have made up a "game board" (which essentially is just a grid with letters A-J going up and down one side and numbers 1-8 going along the bottom of your grid for your coordinates). I don't have this on computer but could fax it to those who are interested. (Perhaps someone could either scan it into their computer or make one up as an attachment so everyone could download it easily. )

Here are the "rules" I've used:

Object: To sink the following ships and miss the mines:
1 Battleship (4 B's in a row)
1 Destroyer (3 D's in a row)
1 Carrier (2 C's in a row)
1 Submarine (1 S)
4 Mines (4 randomly placed, hand-drawn bombs)

*One person is the "boss" and places all the above ships on his/her grid (everyone else will be trying find and sink these ships. If questions are to be asked this person also asks them
*Every person is given a blank grid to record hits (X's) and misses (O's)
*Every "hit" of a vessel is worth 1 point
*If you hit a bomb you lose your next turn AND 4 points

If you have a small group you can play this with each individual working on their own or if you have a big group I'll divide the group into 2 teams with each team member marking and using the same score on their grids (each person still receives a blank grid to mark to follow their team's hits and misses). I have in my lap, hidden from everyone else's view, the "master grid" that I've put the ships on. I rotate back and forth between team members asking them what ever question you want to ask. If the person asked gets the question right they get a chance to call a grid coordinate in an attempt to find your ships. (Everyone marks "X" or "O" on their grids depending on if it was a hit or miss) Everyone keeps their own score or their teams score on the side margin of their grid. (1 point for each hit, -4 points if they hit a mine.)

Contributed by: Sandyhay@aol.com

More on this game..
They way you ask the questions is like a scripture chase.. You call one out, like: 1 Nephi 2:14.. and the first team to find it gets a point. Then they get a chance to throw the ball over the net, if they hit one of the players they are out. The one who has the most players left wins.. It is called scripture battleship. You put the volleyball net up (we are using two or three.) Then you put sheets on the nets so no one can see on either side. You divide the youth up into 2 teams. Some of the team will be battleships. and they lie on the ground all over half of the gymnasium. Some of the team members are going to answer questions about scriptures. If they get the answer right, they get to throw 5 tennis balls over the net and if they hit anyone on the other side, they sink that battleship. The one with the most battleships still standing at the end of the game is the winning team. (I hope I explained this well enough)

Contributed by: Teresa in TN

We did this as a YM/YW combined activity last week. I passed out the scriptures we would be using (taken from seminary scripture mastery) and told them they could mark them with little post its that stuck out of the scriptures. Most of the kids are very new members or returning inactives and I wanted good participation. Then we had someone call out a clue from the scripture -- "Go & Do"(1 Nephi 3:7) -- the first team to have a person find it -- ie. the scriptures OPEN to the reference and shouted it out (they didn't have to read the whole verse) got to toss the balls over the nets.

It was pretty fun. I attached the list of scriptures we used. I didn't have time to do the D&C verses though. ...Oh... for them to "sink" the ships, they had to hit a battleship (lying down) three times and a small ship (standing up) twice. Whoever has the most standing in the time allotted wins. -or after all the scriptures are used. The kids really liked it.

Marty and Karen Fremlin

We just played this last week. It was somewhat successful. I think if we had had a little more adult intervention it would have gone more smoothly but all the adult leaders just sat around while I tried to ask questions, discipline out of control teenagers and gather up the balls that kept getting thrown around so I would suggest making sure you have enough adult participation with the kids.

We pinned sheets to the volleyball nets to separated the gym into to sections. The kids split into teams and lay on the floor on their side of the net. People on each time are chosen to answer a scripture based question. If the question is answered correctly they get to throw balls over their side of the net to try to hit someone on the other side of the net.

If they hit someone that battleship is sunk and that child is out. You need to have something for the sunken battleships to do to keep them busy or else they get bored and start acting up. I received my list of questions from a gal in our ward. She got them out of an activity book she bought at the bookstore but you could come up with
your own pretty easily.

Contributed by: Sandy in Idaho sandyp@dcdi.net -We recently played the life-size battleship game as a joint YM/YW activity. The Beehives and their leaders wrote questions based on the new For the Strength of Youth booklet. We told them to bring their FSOY booklet and their scriptures.

The questions were directed to a specific player on one side or the other. If they got it right without help, they got 5 shots. If they had help from someone (or several others) on their team, they got 4 shots. If they needed to look up the answer, they got 3 shots.

We put up the volleyball net and hung sheets from it to keep players from seeing each other. We had them sit in groups of three, four or five, but did
not use a grid. Once the game started, they had to stay where they first sat unless they were throwing the balls at the other team. We did not allow them to dodge the balls, either. We used some very soft balls made of fabric stuffed with batting that my children had.

There were a few problems that we had. Hopefully someone else knows ways to solve these problems.

First, if was difficult to keep everyone's interest. While I was asking one player a question, others were not listening. I thought about opening the questions to anyone on either team, but I was concerned that a few YM/YW would hog the questions, making it less fun for the others.

Second, those who got out did not have anything to keep them interested until the next round started.

The youth did seem to enjoy the game, though. Hope this helps you make your activity successful!

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