Need a Critical Thinking Time Filler on the Fly? {Giveaway Time}

(Keep scrolling for the giveaway.) I recently went to a conference, and I learned a new game from the author of byrdseed.com.  This game doesn’t take much planning and really deepens kids’ thinking.  I can’t wait to use this!  The game is Ultimate Tic-Tac-Toe!

Make a board like a regular tic-tac-toe board with little tic-tac-toe boards inside each square.  The first player makes a mark in any spot.

Then the place that was marked sends you to the square you need to mark in.  Like above, the middle square in the small grid was marked so that will send you to the middle square in the larger board.  You may mark anywhere in the center of the large grid like below.

Now this sends the x player to the middle right square of the large grid to mark anywhere in the smaller grid.

The x player just sent the o player to the middle.  This wasn’t the best move for the x player because they just helped the o player gain ground.

The o player now sends the x player to the bottom right square which is a safe move since no squares are marked there.

Another safe move was made by x who sent the o player to another empty grid in the middle left of the board.

Now, o sent x back to the middle of the board which was a risky move.  This helps x set up the board to win or block.  Two moves are shown below.

The middle x sends the o player to the top right large square.  This sends x to the top right corner.

The x player sends o to the bottom right square in a safe move.

To the luck of the x player, o made a play in the middle of the small grid on the bottom right.  Now guess where x gets to go?!

Now x wins the middle square and no one else can play in the middle square.

The goal of the game is to gain three large squares next to each other in any direction just like regular tic-tac-toe.

If the player does get sent to any large square that has already been won, he  can choose wherever he wants to go.  Have fun playing!

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