Minecraft!

This week the students were FINALLY able to go on the iPads and begin building their projects for our grade-level towns in Minecraft!  They have been so excited for this day!

Before we could build, we needed to make a plan; as we learned from our discussion of what a town planner does, they don't just throw buildings up without considering the bigger picture.  We looked at a map of our town and how the buildings are laid out, then the students proceeded to determine how they'd like their towns to look, using their drafts and paper to represent roads and water.

Kindergarten

1st Grade

2nd Grade

Then came the tricky part--finding those buildings in the Minecraft virtual world and hoping that the students could replicate our town layout.  For kindergarteners, it was quickly apparent that they might have overstated their Minecraft ability, and that the few students who were confident builders became experts who helped their friends.  We even called in a fourth grader to help quickly build roads!

1st and 2nd graders had more experienced Minecrafters, so these classes went very smoothly!  The only hiccup is encouraging students to be good teammates and be sure to share the iPad time equally.  I'm sure they'll feel more confident doing so once everyone in the class improves his or her skills.  Right now there are a lot of experts who need to do a bit more teaching to their partner.  They'll get there!

Third, fourth, and fifth graders got straight to work.  If anything, they were overthinking the design process and being too thoughtful about where to place our buildings! They certainly have big ideas!  Once every team had a location, they immediately got down to it.

 

Week one was a huge success!  Can't wait to see what amazing creations our students come up with!