Tic-tac-toe

Objective:

It is a strategy game that promotes sportsmanship, ability to look ahead, preparing the children in facing complex life situations.

Related Values:

• Observation
• Focus
• Logical Thinking
• Presence of Mind
• Forethought
• Equanimity
• Right Conduct

Materials Required:

Paper & Pencils

Preparatory work for the Guru:

None

How to Play

1. The Guru explains the game with the help of a few sample grids.
2. Children are seated in pairs with sheets & pencils.
3. The Guru asks each pair to draw a grid like the one below Figure 1.
4. One child’s name is ‘Ram’ and the other is ‘Sita’. Each takes turns, writing his name in the empty squares (Figure 2).
5. The child who gets 3 of his Names in a row (horizontally/vertically/diagonally)first, is the winner.
6. When all the 9 squares are full, the game is over. If no player has 3 Names in a row, the game ends in a tie (Figure 3).

Figure 1

Figure 2

Figure 3

Variations:

A) Images

and
and

and

and

B) Names

• Hari and  Hara
• Radhe and Shyam
• Sai and Baba
• Allah and Shiva

C) Quotes

• • Serve and All
  • See and Good
  • Do and Good

• Be and Good
• Start and Early
• Be and Heroes

Tips for Gurus:

From the above pairs of images/words, the Guru allots each pair to two children and asks them to play the game, as explained by her
A) Children love to draw
B) Paired Divine Names
C) Repeated writing of Sai Quotes (eg. Love All – Child 1- love& child 2 – All) brings about reinforcement of values in the children.
D) Guru instructs the children NOT to strike off the 3 same names/symbols if they are in a line, but draw oval shape covering them as shown in (fig.2 and fig.4) as the words are holy.