Minecraft in Year 1

Any followers of this blog and teachers who have attended my training know I am a massive fan of using Minecraft in the classroom. As a creative tool, it is a fantastic way to let children build settings, historical structures and different environments.

Last week, I was working with my Year 1 class. Their topic this half term is the seaside. After learning all about features of the seaside, I challenged the class to try and build a seaside scene in Minecraft. Encouraging them to include as many features as possible, it wasn't going to be an easy task for Year 1. However, I was lucky to have some helpers in the form of Year 6 students, who are nothing short of experts when it comes to Minecraft. As most of the cohort were away visiting their high school, I had a few pupils transform into teachers helping and guiding the Year 1 pupils through their task.


Some of the efforts from the Year ones were amazing! I was really impressed but I loved the discussion and collaboration between the students and their Year 6 mentors. It is something I am hoping to do more in the future. Once the children had designed their scenes, they could either label the features:


Or they could put themselves into the picture using the app Pic Collage:


It was a very enjoyable afternoon all round. I was able to assess what the children could remember about the seaside and features you would see there. The Year 1 children relished a session using their favourite game and the Year 6 helpers loved using their expertise to help other students!




Comments

  1. Unknown15 July 2016 at 07:13

    Great idea! Doing a topic on buildings next term - planning to use minecraft a lot!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Unknown15 July 2016 at 07:14

    Great idea - doing a topic on buildings next term and plan to use minecraft a lot!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Luke Johnson16 July 2016 at 04:43

    Awesome as well! We use MC in our Grade 1 class too. We use it to explore Push and Pull forces. I have a push and pull world, and the students create their own examples. We have built our own version of the Far Away Tree, and also use it to create Zoo's after our minibeast unit, and Zoo visit! Great work, and looking forward to keep hearing about it!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Jac19 July 2016 at 04:12

    Hi - looks like a great time in your classroom. Could you answer a couple of questions for me? - did you use skitch to add the labels?? And how did they include themselves with the pic collage app? Is this just screen shotting or something more complicated?? Thanks in advance

    ReplyDelete

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