Town Planning Presentations!

Here is the video of the unbelievable STEAM presentations of the students' Minecraft towns that they created using design thinking and tow planning.  They kept their Global Goals in mind and worked hard to create a sustainable community that we all wish we could live in!!  Not to mention, they had quite an audience: kindergarten and third grade presented to each other, as did first and fourth, and second and fifth, plus teachers, district administrators, and community members!  It was a real testament to their hard work and awesome communication skills!

Bravo to all our builders, engineers, and visionaries!!

Presentation Day!

I cannot express how incredibly proud I am of all our OQS students who did an unbelievable job before break presenting their Minecraft worlds!

The afternoon was videotaped, and once I get it I will share all the amazing learning that was shared and communicated so clearly and intelligently!  From the assistant superintendent to members of the community to staff members, the students had to present in front of quite an audience, and I was so proud of their skills.  More amazing details to come, but the students deserved a shout out!

It's Coming Together!

This week our Minecraft buildings are actually coming together to look more like a town!  The students are working so hard and the impact this unit has had on their learning, communication, cooperation, and design thinking has been unbelievable!  Check out this video of how Minecraft has helped these fifth graders learn!

The students are putting their finishing touches on their buildings and infrastructure this week, and next week they will present their towns to one another! I can't wait to see how it all comes together in a town that reflects our values and the Global Goals that we believe in!

 

 And a note to our future selves if we ever do Minecraft again, or any other educators out there who are considering this project, be sure to have the students create some element to their creation that clearly identifies it as theirs (i.e. a purple door, a tree, a chimney, a sign), so that there is no confusion or arguments over who is building what!  Including which Global Goal they are working with reminds the teachers of their focus, which can help us keep them on track!

Next week we present!! We cannot wait!

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!

Town Planning: Draft Day

As we prepare to create our grade-level communities using Minecraft this week, students across the grades began drafting their contributions to the community on graph paper.  Some students are creating buildings, such as a town hall, fire and police station, or library, while other students will be in charge of infrastructure or green spaces.  Whatever element they will be adding to our communities, they will be sure it ties in with their chosen Global Goal.

As with all our design projects, students always begin with designing beforehand.  These kindergarten, first and second grade students tried to put their ideas on paper (with varying degrees of success due to their developing fine motor skills), but everyone worked together with their partner to make their visions a reality.

 Students created their own norms for behavior and digital citizenship while in Minecraft and working with their partners, as well as identified how they knew when their buildings are complete.

After their designs were finished, the students in grades 3-5 were able to take the next step and lay out their town visually like we learned from Miss Greenfield, considering where each part of the town would be best located for our community.

With their designs in hand and expected behavior in mind, this week in STEAM is going to be so much fun!