Connect four for the classroom board
The game everybody already knows, drawn large enough for a classroom board. Play it with two halves of the class, or let the class take on the computer. No account, no adverts, straight into a game.
How it works
Choose the opponent
Two players, or the computer at three levels. Red is always the class; yellow is the second player or the computer.
Drop a disc
Click or tap a column, or type its number: 1 for the column on the left, 7 for the one on the right. The disc falls to the lowest free place, the same way it does on a real board.
Four in a row
Across, up or diagonally: whoever gets four in a row first wins. The winning four stay lit and the rest of the board fades, so the class can see what it came down to.
Again, or one move back
Take back undoes a misplaced tap, new game clears the board. Who starts alternates from game to game, so the advantage of the first move does not always sit with the same side.
With the whole class
Put the board full screen and split the class in two: the left half is red, the right half yellow. A different child picks the column each turn, and the rest of the row thinks along without calling it out.
Ask each side to agree on a column before anyone points at one. That turns connect four into a conversation rather than a race: "if we do not play there, they have three in a row."
A game rarely lasts more than three minutes, which makes it something you can actually finish in the last quarter of an hour, or use as a reward without losing half a lesson to it.
Playing the computer
On easy the computer takes a winning move and blocks a threat that is already there, but it looks no further ahead. Children of six or seven beat it as soon as they learn to build two threats at once.
On medium it looks a few moves ahead and stops walking into the simple traps. This is the level where a class has to talk it over before choosing.
On hard it searches far enough to punish almost any mistake. Use that level for a pair who have finished their work rather than for the whole class: the first game is a loss.
What there is to learn
Connect four looks like luck and is not. A disc in the middle column belongs to more possible rows than one in the corner, and that is something children work out for themselves after a few games.
The real step is the double threat: one move that makes four in two places at once, so the other side can only block one of them. Have the child who wins that way explain out loud what they saw.
It is also practice in looking ahead without arithmetic. "If I play there, she gets the square above it" is exactly the kind of reasoning that maths and reading comprehension ask for too.
Frequently asked questions
Do I need an account?
No. Connect four opens straight away and works without signing in.
Can a move be taken back?
Yes, with take back. Against the computer its move and yours go together, so it is the class turn again.
Can the class play from the keyboard?
Yes. The number keys 1 to 7 drop a disc in that column. On a touchscreen you tap the column, and both at once is fine.
Who starts?
Red the first time, and after that in turn: whoever did not start the last game starts the next one.
Is a game kept when I close the page?
No. A game belongs to the hour it is played in, so the board starts empty. What is kept is the opponent and the level you chose, and those stay in this browser.
Can it be played in Dutch or German?
Yes. Switch language with the button in the top corner; the rules are the same everywhere, only the words around the board change.