A Cookie for Santa – Christmas Battleship Printable Game
I love adding games into our holiday celebrations – and games with a bit of an educational slant a great bonus. This simple Christmas game works on grids and coordinates in such a fun way.
And even better – this is a printable Christmas game!
A Cookie for Santa – a Printable Christmas Game
It’s Christmas time again and that means it’s time for fun, tradition, and incorporating the holiday spirit into every facet of our homeschool.
And who doesn’t want to work on grids and coordinates with a fun holiday game?
If your kids love Christmas and Battleship, this is the game for them.
And if you want to incorporate more games into your Christmas holidays, check out this Christnas treasure hunt free printable!
How to Set Up the Cookie for Santa Christmas Game
This game is very quick to set up.
You can just print, fold, and play!
But if there is a chance you want to play this more than once, I encourage you to laminate first.
The paper does not stand up to multiple uses on it’s own, and it’s much harder to mark spaces if you’re trying to reuse the board.
Start by printing out two copies of the game board. Each player will use their own copy of the gameboard.
After printing (and laminating, if you choose) fold the paper at the dotted line. Folding can be difficult with laminated paper, but it is doable. Sometimes scoring one side will help is to fold easier.
Next, tape the two pieces together at the top. This helps the boards to stay upright and prevent the other player from seeing your board.
This photo is a view from the top. You can see we taped it at the top. Then we let the bottoms angle out a bit to create a triangle shape. The gameboard stood perfectly fine like this!
Now all you need is a small object to mark where you’ve hidden your cookie and you’re good to go!
How to Play the Christmas Game
We treated this game just like a game of Battleship – but there’s a faster and simpler way to play as well.
Gameplay Option#1:
This version is the closest to Battleship.
First, both players secretly place their cookie in one box. We used little bits of playdough to mark ours. But you could also use a small gem, Cheerio, mini eraser – or even laminate the page and use dry erase markers.
After both players have placed their cookie, start taking turns guessing coordinates.
One at a time, pick a square and say the matching letter and number.
After one player guesses, the other players confirms if they found the cookie or missed.
If the guess misses, the player should mark where they guessed. This isn’t a completely necessary step. But it’s easy to forget where you’ve already guessed. Marking it down helps me avoid guessing the same spot twice!
Now the second player goes, guessing a square, and having their guess confirmed or denied.
Play continues back and forth until someone finds the other players cookie.
Gameplay Option #2
This game play is very nearly the same, but will produce a much faster game.
Similar to the first version, both players choose a place to hide their cookie and mark the spot somehow.
In this version, instead of guessing specific squares, the players will guess objects on the page. For instance, they might ask if the cookie is on the fireplace. If the cookie is not on the fireplace, you’d want to mark off the entire fireplace.
You can see how this version would move much faster.
Players continue taking turns until one player finds the other’s cookie.