Building Brick Challenge: Make a Tic-Tac-Toe Grid

What You Need:

• Building bricks of any size and shape

What You Do:

1. Ask your learner, “Can you build a tic-tac-toe grid?”
2. Encourage your child to make a plan. Ask, “How many bricks do you think you will need?” or “How large or small do you want your grid to be?”
3. Give your child time to create their design. Ask your child if they need help, but they should be allowed to do most of the building. You can also ask your child if they want to use other materials to create “x” and “o” pieces.
4. Have designers play tic-tac-toe with their new design. 
5. After testing out the design, ask your learner what ways they can adjust their design. For example:
   • Do you want to make the grid larger or smaller?
   • Do you think tic-tac-toe can be played on a grid other than 3 by 3?
6. Challenge designers to share their new designs. They can record a video, or write an article describing it. Ask some prompting questions, like:
   • What did you enjoy the most about this activity?
   • Did you find tic-tac-toe challenging?
   • Who won the most rounds of tic-tac-toe?
   • Did you discover a strategy for winning?

Amplify this challenge! Choose one or more of the following questions to add a new level of difficulty to the challenge:

• Create and play tic-tac-toe on a 5 by 5 grid!
• Make it fun for the whole family by having a family-wide tic-tac-toe tournament!