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DAY 1: AN INTRODUCTORY DAY – WHAT IS MINECRAFT?
Welcome to our “Think, Craft, Repeat – A Minecraft Week” – an at home week filled with days of relaxed learning and fun activities all themed to the ever popular game – Minecraft! After all, what better way to get them to keep learning than to pick a theme they already think is fun! For this week, rather than focusing on just the Minecraft game and how to play, we used their love of the game to dig deeper into the history of the game and learn more about very popular characters! For our first day, we introduced the theme of the week, studied the history of the Minecraft game itself, then read up on some tips, tricks, and tutorials!
Like most of our at home camp weeks, we kicked off the week by easing into the topic. We started off with setting up the camp area with some DIY crafts (many that we also used for our Ultimate Minecraft Party! And, like all days, we added in some interesting books and some writing / storytelling prompts to keep them learning! Read on to check out the fun!
INTRO
Almost every child is familiar – at least in some capacity – with the oh-so-popular game Minecraft. BUT, this week, we used that familiar game to bring in some great learning concepts!
It’s worth noting that there are a TON of educational resources for Minecraft fans. Minecraft Education, officially from Minecraft, is a great resource and way to teach kids several concepts through the game itself! You could build an entire week – or more – just with Minecraft Education! One could also spend quite a bit of time on learning more build concepts in the actual game. There are several tutorials if you’re looking to build something in particular. For this week, though, we focused more on the history of the game and delving deeper into some fan favorite characters!
Here are some great articles for some background information for your little ones (or you to brush up on!)
Once they’d been fully immersed into the topic and super excited, then it was off to setting up the camp area – always a fun activity – and reading, writing, crafting, and experiments!
DECORATE THE CAMP AREA
Decorating the ‘Camp Area’ or the room / area of your house where you’ll have most of your activities is a great way to get the kids excited about the theme of the week! If they’re incredibly crafty and creative, having some extra and opened-ended crafts would be great to keep them engaged. Otherwise, a prepared activity would work well!
If you’ve got any Minecraft stuffed animals or figurines filling up your kid’s room, then bring them out to ‘enjoy’ Minecraft week!
For our camp area, we decorated the space with Minecraft Table Covers, DIY Printable Minecraft Blocks from www.puresweetjoy.co.za, TNT toilet paper crafts, and all our Minecraft books!
WEEKLONG PROJECT
In addition to introducing the topic of the week, we try to give the kids a week-long project to help reinforce what they learn throughout the day.
Our project of the week was – of course – to build something in Minecraft!!! BUT, instead of just building away, we had them create their own story AND build it in Minecraft (e.g. theme, characters, settings, plot, etc).
WHAT TO WATCH
We find that mixing in a short video themed to our day is a great way to add some learning fun! We try to pick informative videos OR mix in a cartoon favorite (where they don’t even realize they’re learning). Here are some of the videos we picked from for the day:
- The evolution of Minecraft by Minecraft (7m)
- History of Minecraft for Kids | Bedtime History by Bedtime History (8m)
- The History of Minecraft by Pitfall (2.5 hrs) This is a very informative video but is quite lengthy. If you’re interested in a specific bit of history, there is a transcript and highlights to get to something in particular.
FOOD CRAFTS / SNACKS
What’s more fun than taking a break and having a simple snack??? Including the snack in your theme of the day! We find that our kiddos are more than happy to eat the snacks they create especially when they can arrange them into fun shapes and scenes!
There are quite a few Minecraft recipes out there – even an Official Minecraft Cookbook! We tried our hand at the suspicious stew, which came out quite nicely! Then we munched on some Minecraft cookies!
READING
It’s no secret that reading is an important part of learning, which is why we pick out a handful of books that are fun and filled with some learning tidbits. For our older ones, we have them fill out some worksheets (or let them create some of their own comics) to describe what they read and/or learned! These are a few we picked from for the day:
- The World of Minecraft Hardcover – by Mojang AB
- The Unofficial History of Minecraft (The Complete Gaming Chronicles) by Jakob Baker
WRITING & WRITING PROMPTS
Just like reading, writing is a great way to keep kids learning by both encouraging their creativity and thought process as well as helping them practice their motor skills and penmanship.
If you’ve got a little one, have them trace words related to the theme: MINECRAFT, CRAFTING, BUILDING, CREATIVE
If you’ve got older children, have them write a sentence or two up to a page or two (depending on their age). Encourage them to be creative AND give reasons for why they made certain choices. This was our writing prompt of the day but definitely pick something your kiddo might be interested in writing about!
- Describe a setting for a short story. Then build it in Minecraft!
- Have you ever had an idea for a video game? How would you build it and get everyone to play it?
- Imagine playing Minecraft then being pulled into the world you’re building! How would you survive? How would you escape?
THANK YOU!!!
Thank you for checking out our at home learning fun article! If you enjoyed this post, please let us know what you think in the comments below and/or follow us on Pinterest
Also, if you haven’t already, check out some of our other Minecraft Ideas days as well as our DIY At Home Camps!
Happy Learning!
MORE MINECRAFT FUN:
Check out our ULTIMATE Minecraft Party!
