A week ago, I was given the opportunity to test out three different Minecraft-themed educational units from the curriculum website, Educents.
You can find those here: www.educents.com/minecraft-units.html for only $4.99 for all three!
When they heard I was chosen, they were so excited! All three of my kiddos LOVE playing Minecraft (pocket edition on their Kindle Fires , though we are hoping to get the XBOX 360 version soon), so they could not wait to see what these units were about.
There were three Minecraft-related units:
* Perimeter & Area, which I gave to 13-year-old Chloë to do,
* Angles, which I gave to 11-year-old Jack to work on, and
* Writing, which I gave to 9-year-old Sophia to complete.
Chloë has worked on perimeter and area before (well, they all have), so it was fun for her to apply this learning to the Minecraft world they all love so much.
Jack wasn't thrilled with his study on angles, until he got to the part where he actually got to build and work on things in his world on the Kindle. Then he said, "Hey, this is actually kind of fun!"
This is the cubey world he built for the unit. He had to build something with 200 right angles, so we figured out that was 50 blocks. He also had to find obtuse and acute angles within his Minecraft world, and this was quite abit more challenging! Really made him think.
Sophia, who is quite the little story-teller anyway, found the stories she had to write a fun exercise, indeed. She got into it!
However, only Jack finished his unit on angles. Chloë and Sophia had to be poked and prodded along, and even though I told them that I would give them a Minecraft-related Christmas present when they finished, well... they just decided they wanted to finish them later. And they will, but not tonight.
And then, it was time to whip out the promised (kinda) Minecraft presents! I thought they were all pretty cool, so I let them play "musical gifts," and whatever present they ended up with when I stopped the music was the one they had to open. Trading, as always, was an option after that (but no one ever has, to my knowledge).
Jacky opened this big ol' Light-Up Wall Torch, which I bought from ThinkGeek.
Also from ThinkGeek, Sophie "won" this Minecraft Light-Up Redstone Ore, which means nothing to me, but she thought it was cool, so hey.
Here are the "liddy-liddy" and the "middy-liddy" with their lights.
Chloë scored the "big" Minecraft prize, a LEGO "The Cave" to build, which I bought on the LEGO website.
The other two were, um, dismayed about that until they saw their own. And little do they know, I might just have more such gifts hidden away somewhere!
It took her a while, but she finally build a LEGO Minecraft Cave, with Steve eating a sammich, a spider, a creeper, and other stuff I wouldn't know if it kicked me in the nose!
Overall, I would recommend the Educents Minecraft learning units, but be ready to provide help and encouragement where it is needed.
(And big thumbs-up to the LEGO and ThinkGeek goodies!)
Thanks for stopping by.
Fin.
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