Dots and Squares Game

Here’s a fun game to entertain the kids even if all you have with you is a pen and a piece of paper. 🙂 We’ll call it Dots and Squares Game.

The first thing you’ll do is to make 100 dots on your piece of paper, in 10 rows of 10 dots each. If you want a little help to keep the dots in line, you can use a lined piece of paper behind a plain piece so you can see the lines showing through on the top paper.

Hanging both pieces of paper on a window also helps to see the lines more clearly.

10 dots down the side and 10 dots across…

Keep going…you’re getting there. It doesn’t take as long as it sounds like it will take when you say “100 dots”. 😉

Presto! There we are!

The game can be played with just one pen being passed around to each player or you can use a different colored pen for each person. (Or use a pencil.)

The idea of the game is to make the most squares. Each person takes a turn drawing ONE line, either horizontally or vertically, between 2 adjacent dots. (No diagonals.)

Play continues this way while each player tries to NOT add the third side to a square because if you do, that means the next person can make a square.

Eventually the game board gets so full that someone HAS to add the third line. Can you spot the place that is ready to be closed off into a square? Hint: look on the lower right side.

In this game, Jasper was the first one to make a square. When you complete the fourth side of a square, you get to claim that square as yours and add your initial to the square. These are the names and initials we used for our example game:

So you can see the J in the box in the bottom right corner of the game board. When you finish a square, you get to take another turn. And sometimes you can make only 1 square, but sometimes you are able to make a LOT of them! When Jasper played his bonus move, he set it up so that Rick was able to make a square on his turn.

Play continues in this manner until the entire game board has been made into squares and claimed by the player making each square.

Count up the squares for each person and see how many squares each one made.

The player with the most squares wins the game!

It’s a great game to play to keep the kids occupied while you are somewhere waiting for someone or in a restaurant waiting for your food to be served. Tuck a little tablet into your purse or pocket along with a pen and you’re ready to go! Have fun!