If you’re a parent of a Minecraft enthusiast, you’ve probably thought about how to use your kid’s favorite game to homeschool. Minecraft is a great way for kids to learn about problem-solving and critical thinking skills, but it can also be used as the basis for other activities that are fun and educational. Here are some ideas on how you can use Minecraft as part of your child’s education:
Homeschooling With Minecraft
Minecraft is a great way to teach your kids about the world around them. It’s also a great way to teach them math, science, engineering, problem-solving, and creativity. And it’s not just for boys! Girls can play too! Many girls love to play Minecraft in creative mode as they can create their own villages and art with the blocks.
Minecraft also helps with social skills because there are many clubs where you have to work together as a team to build things in the game. This can help kids learn how to get along with others better in real life as well.
Minecraft and gamified homeschooling is rising in popularity. You can jump on board with these books, field trip ideas, and printable worksheets. And, of course, get the game!
Minecraft Books
A Minecraft book is a good way for your child to learn how to read or enhance reading skills. These are especially useful for kids who don’t like to read because reading is made more enjoyable when you read about something you’re interested in.
Dawn of the Villagers
Dawn of the Villagers is a book about a girl named Tess who falls through her bedroom floor and into a Minecraft world. She helps a group of villagers spawns save their village from the Warden alongside the Golem guard. This is book one in the Strange things of the Village series. It is the perfect bridge novel for early readers. It is more than a step into reading book, but just a short chapter book. You can get it on Amazon today in paperback, ebook, or Kindle Unlimited formats. In fact, some of the pictures on today’s printable are inspired from this series.
Rise of the Portals
Rise of the Portals is the second book in the Strange Things in the Village series, where heroes and Minecraft come together to make an epic story. This is series is filled with four unofficial Minecraft novels. In Rise of the Portals, detectives Lotte and Seb are searching for a ten-year-old boy named Sam. These detectives stumble upon Minecraft Portals at the local skating rink and end up in the Minecraft world where they go toe to toe with a pillager village, the Nether, and skeletons. Will they save Sam and make it back to the real world? Read more via ebook, paperback, or through Kindle Unlimited to find out.
Mystery of The Taco Shop
Harold, the farmer Minecraft Villager spawn, is the star of book three in the Strange things in the Village series of Unnoficial Minecraft Novels. In Mystery of the Taco Shop, Harold is a 183-day-old villager spawn that gets a mysterious surprise one morning. There is a taco shop complete with salsa bowl seating right beside his farm! Who is it run by? Where did it come from? No one knows, but Harold is determined to find out. Read more about Harold’s story and how he becomes a hero in the village in book three, available today on Amazon in ebook, paperback, and through the Kindle Unlimited program.
The taco shop from Mystery of the Taco Shop is featured on today’s printable! As is Harold, the villager spawn.
Simple Minecraft-Inspired Field Trips
Planning a simple field trip doesn’t have to be difficult. Here are some tips for making your next field trip more fun, educational and memorable.
- Pre-planning is key. If you’re going on a long trip, pack snacks and water bottles in advance so that you don’t have to stop at every gas station along the way.
- Make it interactive! Rather than just taking the kids by car or bus to the zoo, let them hold snakes and slither through tunnels while they learn about nature’s amazing animals. Or if you’re going to visit an art museum together, bring along colored pencils and sketch pads so they can create their own masterpieces inspired by what they see in front of them — perhaps even learning how different materials can affect their artwork as well!
- Have fun with it! Don’t forget about having fun too!
The Scavenger Hunt: Minecraft Car Ride Edition is a great, free, and simple field trip that helps teach your kids about research and making bar graphs. It is perfect for first and second grade, as these grades start working with bar graphs! Start by taking page one on your car ride and have your child put a tally mark next to each item she sees when she sees them. There are restaurants, birds, red cars, and people to keep track of.
Minecraft Free Printable Activity
Minecraft is a game that can be played by people of all ages and is enjoyed by millions of people around the world. There are different versions of the game that you can purchase and play. The premise behind the game is simple: build a virtual house, create items to help your house become more comfortable and safe, fight off bad guys and go on adventures with friends!
Download the free Scavenger Hunt: Minecraft car ride edition to help your child work on bar graphing skills. After you complete the “field research,” ie, driving around town and putting tallys on the page every time one of the four items is spotted, then have your child use the second page to turn it into a bar graph by simply coloring in the number of boxes that match the tally marks. You may have more space than available if you live in a bigger town. If that’s the case, just graph the first ten.
We hope you have fun with this scavenger hunt and bar graph! If you’re looking for more ways to get your kids engaged in school using Minecraft, check out our guide to Minecraft for homeschoolers.
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